An organic farmer transforms a struggling farm into a Rs 10 crore-per-year business.
Meet Rakesh Chowdhary, a 40-year-old farmer from Rajpura village in Rajasthan's Nagaur district. Rakesh was raised in a farming household and has always known what it meant to live an agricultural life. He remained committed to the line of work in his family's business even after leaving his village to seek a BSc degree from Jaipur.
Now, you might be thinking that most people who pursue higher education tend to look for jobs instead of returning to the family farm. But Rakesh was different. It was crystal plain to him that he would go back to the farm, and he did.
However, when Rakesh shared his plan to pursue medicinal farming instead of traditional farming, he faced resistance from his friends and family. They were hesitant to try something new and unfamiliar. But Rakesh was determined to take advantage of the opportunity and make the most of it.
Rakesh discovered the State Medicinal Plant Board's contractual farming programme, which provided farmers with subsidies, in 2003. This discovery gave him the inspiration he needed to pursue his dream of medicinal farming.
Despite facing many challenges, Rakesh persisted and founded Vinayak Herbal, a company that now earns him over Rs 10 crore annually. He has farms in several states and employs over 50,000 farmers to engage in organic medicinal farming. He is now a successful entrepreneur and an inspiration to young people who want to work in agriculture.
Rakesh's journey wasn't an easy one. When he first revealed his unique farming intentions, he encountered resistance from his loved ones. He also had to cope with a severe impediment in the form of a lack of financing and resources. He was a small farmer who had trouble getting loans because he had nothing to mortgage. Nevertheless, he persisted and managed to make it work.
Rakesh studied more to better understand the soil around him after learning from his mistakes. Before planting a crop, he made a checklist that includes taking the climate into account, planting crops of the highest quality, and assessing market demand. Rakesh had figured out the Rajasthani farming system by the year 2005. He was completely versed about the needs of his soil, crop, and climate.
Rakesh founded Vinayak Herbal in 2017 after encountering several difficulties during his early years of cultivation. In order to successfully produce medical plants, he worked with farmers all throughout the nation. He then shipped the plants to pharma companies and dealers.
Rakesh thinks that more young people ought to choose farming as a career. Only 30 percent of the recent generation of children from farming households choose to pursue agriculture, he has observed. He explains this by blaming the lack of organisation in the agricultural sector and farmers' ongoing losses. He has made it his mission to disprove this by demonstrating how profitable farming can be when done with the correct information, resources, and perseverance in the face of adversity.
Rakesh thinks the situation can be changed with careful planning, a market-oriented approach, and reasonable rates. It's growing more and more important because without it, there would be farms but no farmers to tend to them. Rakesh Narayan is inspiring young people to pursue farming, and with his efforts, the industry might be made viable.
Read more: Meet Satya Prabin software engineer quits Malaysian IT job to pursue organic farming, earns in lakhs
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 "Rakesh Chowdhary, Farmer, Rajasthan, Medicinal Farming, Contractual Farming, State Medicinal Plant Board, Vinayak Herbal")
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