“An apple a day retains the physician away.”
This line has been drilled into our heads since we had been youngsters. Let’s think about for a minute how our lives could be like if we had limitless entry to this crimson, juicy fruit. Maybe, our house is in an apple orchard? Sounds dreamy proper?
Properly, for Aprajita Bansal, this was not only a dream. Rising up on an apple orchard in Banon in Mandi district, Himachal Pradesh, this was her actuality. Nonetheless, if city dwellers consider that the thought of dwelling in an idyllic village within the mountains is charming and are prone to idealise it, the truth is way from it.
However years in the past, a younger Aprajita discovered metropolis life alluring. “There was a time after I wished to run away from this place as I felt there have been no alternatives right here. Folks didn’t respect farming then, and I wished to reside in a metropolis,” she admits candidly to The Higher India.
Time is a humorous factor, and maturity makes us fall in love with the issues we disliked as youngsters. This third era farmer, too, would discover a deep set ardour in farming, and finally make a profession out of it.
To forestall middlemen from ripping off their earnings, Aprajita began promoting their farm recent apples instantly on-line in 2021. In simply two hours, she was capable of promote 300 kg, guaranteeing that her dad and mom obtained the correct worth for his or her laborious work.
Having a sturdy Instagram group helped as they instantly jumped on to the chance to have recent apples.
She quickly registered her model identify ‘Phal Phool’ via which she sells apples, flower, pulses & vegetable seeds on to prospects. The engineer stop her job a few months in the past to pursue farming full time, with desires of practising permaculture and making a meals forest.
A daughter’s want to assist her father
Aprajita moved to Bengaluru for a job in 2017. When she visited the market, she was shocked to see the costs of apples! Whereas her dad and mom had been struggling to get the correct value for his or her produce within the mandi — with middlemen giving them a pittance — the identical apples had been being bought for nearly Rs 300 per kg.
“I used to be baffled by how chilly storage apples had been fetching a greater value than farm recent apples bought by my dad and mom. I had seen the painstaking efforts taken by my dad and mom to develop these apples firsthand. But, another person was benefiting,” Aprajita shares.
This incident gave delivery to a want to assist her dad and mom which fructified 4 years later.
A transfer to Noida a couple of years later had a pivotal position to play within the engineer unearthing her ardour. Keen on ornament and vegetation, she began rising them. She was a pure at it and her dwelling was quickly crammed.
“My buddies began asking me for methods to develop and deal with vegetation. Since this was a a lot requested query, I began sharing tips about dwelling decor and rising indoor vegetation on Instagram,” shares Aprajita.
Making compost for vegetation and tending to them additionally led her into the world of sustainability. Again dwelling in Himachal, local weather change had adversely impacted their produce as properly. She began searching for methods to fight it, beginning with a shift to pure farming.
When she returned dwelling in July 2021, the harvest season, she discovered that her dad and mom had been struggling to get the correct value for his or her produce.
“Earlier, we needed to go to Delhi to promote our apples. Later, mandis opened up in Himachal. Attributable to middlemen, no farmer ever will get the total worth that he deserves. After my daughter began promoting it on-line, issues have fully modified. I now not have to fret concerning the market price,” says Arun Bansal, who has been farming since 1986.
Pained by what she noticed, she determined to assist her father get the correct value. She requested her Instagram group (which was then about 10,000) if they might be prepared to purchase their apples, freshly plucked from the farm.
To her nice shock, the response was overwhelmingly constructive. She hosted a sale on-line underneath the model identify ‘Him2Home’, which is rebranded to Phal Phool right now.
“My dad and mom had been overjoyed and had tears of their eyes. For the primary time, they had been getting what they deserved,” shares the daughter.
What she discovered was that individuals additionally didn’t know the totally different varieties and high quality of apples that had been bought in cities. Farmers like her father, she says, battle to even get 30-40 % of the value their merchandise are bought for out there.
“The apples you discover out there are sometimes final 12 months’s inventory saved in chilly storage or imported from different nations and saved equally for prolonged intervals. The apple season in Himachal has simply begun, and lots of middlemen are trying to clear their previous inventory,” warns Aprajita.
Over the previous three years, she has bought freshly harvested apples from her farm in July to prospects throughout the nation. “We’re fully bought out this 12 months too,” she says fortunately.
She’s been capable of give her father thrice the revenue that he used to obtain when he bought them within the mandi.
Combating local weather change
One of many first issues this third era farmer did over the previous few years was transfer to a extra sustainable, pure manner of farming. Because of work-from-home, she was capable of help her dad and mom on the orchard whereas persevering with her full-time job.
“For the previous 4.5 years, now we have not used any pesticides or pesticides on the produce. We first labored on reviving the soil well being by utilizing cow dung and vermicompost. We’re additionally utilizing a waste decomposer, which comprises useful microorganisms from the cow dung, essential for reviving soil well being,” she says.
This additionally will increase micro-organisms within the soil, works as a biofertiliser, and supplies a congenial setting for the discharge of vitamins by decomposing the plant/crop residue within the discipline.
Moreover, they’ve additionally planted ‘nitrogen fixer’ vegetation like mustard and clover, that are additionally used for mulching. The Bansal household additionally does mulching thrice a 12 months with the grass grown of their orchard.
Mulching is an agricultural observe the place an space of soil is roofed with grass and different farm waste which decomposes and improves the soil well being.
She additionally did a course in permaculture from Aranya Agricultural Options in Hyderabad. Permaculture (everlasting agriculture) is the harmonious integration of nature and people; the place one lives with nature, as an alternative of towards it.
“Permaculture is a way of life. Right now, most individuals observe monocropping. Check out any forest, you’ll discover totally different sorts of vegetation rising collectively. No jungle can have only one plant or animal. Soil well being and high quality is spoilt due to monoculture. In case you develop totally different crops collectively, even when one is spoiled, the opposite will survive,” explains Aprajita.
She explains that the soil well being improves as properly. She is now engaged on making a meals forest on a small portion of her dad and mom’ land. Right here, she is rising totally different types of native timber and vegetation. She collects heirloom seeds from throughout the nation and grows them of their orchard.
She stays assured that the soil can be in nice situation within the subsequent few years.
“Whereas the apples are extra susceptible to insect bites now and lots of get broken, I’m happy that we’re giving poison-free fruits,” says Aprajita, for whom life has certainly come full circle.
Edited by Padmashree Bhat, Photographs Courtesy Aprajita Bansal
