I’m Amarjit Singh Bhattal and I’m living in Ludhiana (Banohar). Basically, my hometown is the Chandigarh city but I always wanted to live a simple life and give more of my time to nature. My father had a piece of land on the road connecting Bhanohar village to Ferozpur-Ludhiana highway and it was of no use for many years. I thought of investing on that land. So, my father and I get shifted to Bhanohar village and started organic farming of vegetables on that piece of land. To make my investment a profitable venture, I established a shop (Jatt Sauda) at my farm where I started selling the farm-grown vegetables. This whole concept of having a shop at the farm is known as “ON-ROAD FARM MARKET”.

At my farm, I grow vegetables, lentils, fruits, and spices without using insecticides and fertilizer. I only prefer organic farming. I also have a small poultry farm where I have around 100 chickens (desi murgiyaan). These numbers of chickens keep on going up and down, but the demand for desi eggs never goes down and are sold as soon as they reach the store’s rack.

Before starting organic farming I took training from Kheti Virasat Mission; and in 2012, I started organic farming. I grow all the seasonal vegetables. And have 3 workers which help me in my farm work.

Well, farming is not the only profession in my life, before farming I was a consultant at an immigration firm and before that, I was in the army as a captain. I did my degree (MSc.) from Punjab University, Chandigarh.

I believe in simple living and respecting the Mother Nature and by doing organic farming I am trying my best to protect the nature from harmful insecticides and chemicals. Currently, my main motive is to provide healthy food to the community.

Whenever I get free time from farming then I use to write about my thoughts and thinking. From my college days, I’m leaned towards literature. So, in the leisure time, I make sure I utilize it well.

On my behalf, I try to make the people aware of organic farming and I have also given presentations to school children on the importance of organic farming and foods. Whenever villagers come to me to sell their naturally grown produce through my shop, I never refuse them and always motivate them to start natural farming.

One thing of which I have come to notice is that:

Nowadays consumer demand is very unhealthy. With the advanced technologies and modern ways of preserving the food, today you can shop and eat peas and carrot in summers and bottle gourd in winters. As we know that vegetables are an important part of human’s diet and each season offers an array of beautiful fresh produce, so if you include more organic seasonal fruits and veggies in your palate, then it will be more beneficial. Because by adding seasonal fruits in the diet you can enjoy the better taste of the veggies with higher nutritional values, without any chemicals, and it will also support the body’s need according to the season. The day consumer will be aware of the benefits of organic food, from that day the demand for organic veggies and fruits will increase. And to increase the awareness, farmers and consumers interaction is very much necessary.