In Ghel village of Punjab, two men have decided to change their district’s agrarian practices with a simple transformation in the thought pattern of farmers here.

Arshdeep Bahga and his father Sarbjit Bahga had a desire to return to their roots and create a sustainable and biodiverse organic farm that could serve as a model for farmers in the area.

This model is aimed at improving farmers’ livelihoods, increasing their income, and diving into the purview of organic farming.

A vision for the future of farming

Arshdeep, a tech entrepreneur, was working as a research scientist at Georgia Tech, USA, for six years, and decided to move back to India in 2016. Sarbjit, meanwhile, served as an architect in the Punjab Government and had a successful career that spanned 41 years.

Fueled by the zeal to enhance agrarian patterns in the region and boost farmers’ incomes, the duo came up with the idea of establishing a farm that reintroduced traditional practices of organic farming with a blend of modern technologies.

The Bahga Farm was started in the 2019-2020 time frame.

“We spent time with farmers in the region and realised that the use of chemicals to increase the yield of crops had a devastating impact on the land. Due to a lack of knowledge and experience, many farmers had destroyed their lands and over-exploited groundwater resources, leading to depletion of the water table,” says Arshdeep, recounting how these factors served as motivation behind starting Bahga Farm.

In the land of fertile soils, dotted with yellow mustard seeds and the toil of farmers, there is much opportunity for growth and good produce. But this is often affected by practices that are not sustainable, and conditions that are not well researched. In the search to find a way for farmers to maximise the profits they make, Arshdeep and his father came up with one such model.

He explains, “Presently, most farmers sow paddy and wheat and sell the crops in the agriculture produce (grain) markets due to the MSP (minimum support price) that they receive for these crops. Considering the average yield of 30 quintals per acre for paddy, and 20 quintals for wheat, the total grains procured per annum comes to be 50 quintals per acre. As per the prevailing MSP, these crops give a financial return of Rs 98,500 per acre per annum.”

However, simply wheat and rice are not enough to feed a farmer’s family, and they thus end up purchasing other food items including vegetables, pulses, herbs, and cooking oil from grocery shops at hefty prices. From the research that Arshdeep and his father conducted, they deduced that a rough estimate of the yearly purchase of food items by one family comes out to be Rs 1,50,000.

Thus, there is a gaping margin between how much a farmer’s family is earning through selling produce, and how much they need to spend on fulfilling their own food requirements.

The duo’s solution entails that instead of limiting themselves to a wheat rice monoculture on a five acre land, farmers can diversify their cropping patterns. For example, if a farmer owns a five-acre land, it can be divided into sections of one acre each where different crops can be grown. “This diversified cropping model is not only sufficient to meet the food requirements up to 90% but also gives maximum profits from the same piece of land,” claims Arshdeep.

The findings and methods of this sustainable model are discussed in the book that the duo has authored titled, Building a Sustainable and Bio-Diverse ORGANIC FARM: Case Study of a 1 Acre Model Farm in India. It covers their experiences of developing the farm and growing healthy, organic, and natural, farm-fresh vegetables, and can serve as a handy reference for readers who wish to start their own organic farm.