Nine years back when Faisal M, a college dropout, decided to take up farming as a source of livelihood, he wasn’t sure whether he would be able to make a living out of it. But now, Faisal makes Rs one lakh profit every three months cultivating different vegetables in his 50-cent plot.
For 50-year-old Faisal and his family of Pezhakkappilly in Muvattupuzha, nine years of farming has given all they require to live a decent life. “I learnt the basics of farming from my father who used to do farming during his free time after working as a head load worker,” Faisal told “Open Digest”.
Faisal used to cultivate vegetables like bitter gourd, cucumber and snake gourd at his plot and on occasions, he used to switch over to banana cultivation also. “As I do only organic farming, people from faraway places used to come to me to buy vegetables. A lot of shopkeepers are in constant touch with me to check whether I have harvested my vegetables. There is a huge demand for vegetables grown within Kerala,” Faisal said, adding that his two daughters – Farzana,22, a B.Ed student and Ayesha,12– help in the farming. According to Faisal, if one is determined to commit himself into farming, he can earn a decent living and spend quality time with the family. “Farming is totally stress free. We only spend around three hours daily at the farm from 6 am to 9 am,” he said.
Every three months, Faisal used to invest an amount between Rs 30,000 to Rs 40,000 for planting fresh batches of vegetable saplings. “Workers are hired only for preparing the ground for planting the saplings. Rest of the work is done by us. We only use organic manure prepared by us. The vegetables are harvested every three months and we used to earn a revenue of around Rs 1.5 lakh. “In the last nine years, we have managed to earn the trust of a lot of people who regularly buy vegetables from us,” he added.
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