Ishwar Kumar Verma and advanced organic farming in Barsauna. (Awakening)
Himanshu Gautam, Fatehpur (Gaya). Ishwar Kumar Verma, a young farmer of Barsauna village under Tankuppa block of Gayaji district, has given meaning to this statement that those who work hard never lose.
Amidst the financial crisis and limited resources, he sometimes went out of the state in search of employment. But his deep love for soil and land brought him back to the village.
When he saw that due to indiscriminate use of excessive chemical fertilizers and pesticides, the fertility of the fields was being destroyed and people were abandoning farming. Then he resolved to give a new direction to farming.
From the year 2010, Ishwar Verma started farming on his land with organic and Srividhi techniques. In the beginning he had to face a lot of criticism. People considered his experiments impractical. But he ignored the criticism and decided to stick to his duty.
He completely abandoned chemical fertilizers and started using organic fertilizers and used home-made natural medicines to protect the crops from diseases. Which later became a successful model.
Ishwar Verma learned the skill of farming from Pradan Institute in the year 2011 and later received training from famous agricultural scientist Subhash Palekar. In the initial phase, he felt scared while doing Srividhi and organic farming. But institutional guidance boosted his confidence.
To meet household expenses, he started organic vegetable farming and adopted organic farming on a large scale from the year 2014. The result of his continuous hard work and scientific thinking was that the government gave the status of Organic Village to Barsauna village.
Ishwar Verma adopted Non-Pesticide Management in Agriculture i.e. Trap Crop (Border Crop) technique under natural farming. In this technique, insect attracting crops like marigold, coriander, fenugreek, okra, mustard are planted along with the main crop. Due to which insects do not harm the main crop. He claims that with this method up to 30 percent more production is achieved and the income of farmers also increases.
Village farmers were affected
With the aim of making farmers aware, the village farmers were impressed by his efforts. Then 70 to 80 farmers joined them. After this, about 5,000 women farmers were connected to farming through 35 village organizations in Barsauna, Tankuppa, Utlibara and Alabhur panchayats. Today these women are becoming self-reliant and creating a new identity in the field of agriculture.
For his remarkable contribution in the field of farming, Ishwar Verma was honored with Kisan Samman by Atma at the hands of the then District Magistrate Ravi Kumar. He has consistently performed excellently in farmers' exhibitions and has been training farmers in advanced and organic farming in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and other states for the last 10 years.
Ishwar Kumar Verma said that all young farmers should leave chemical farming and adopt organic farming. This will protect soil and health. Rather, the future of the coming generations will also be improved.