“On seeing my backyard garden growing bigger, it gave me a feeling of happiness and satisfaction”, says Ranjit Swargiary, a resident of Jesusalem village in Biswanath District of Assam.

Everything started on 20^th March 2020 when the countrywide lockdown was implemented due to the spread of Covid-19 because of which Ranjit Swargiary had to come back home leaving his job in Arunachal Pradesh. Ranjit Swargiary by profession was a small-time contractor from a village called Jerusalem, of Biswanath District and worked in Arunachal Pradesh for the last five years and had a good earning to support his family.

After having returned from Arunachal Pradesh, it was hard for Ranjit to stay home for long as it was almost a month passed and there were no signs of easing out of the lockdown by the government. All the sources of income were closed for Ranjit, he wanted to do something but had no idea what to do.

On one of the usual days, his wife asked him to join in for cleaning the backyard garden they had. This backyard garden was managed by his wife and his daughter. The family had 2 bighas of land which was mostly left unutilized and only a small part of the land was being used as a backyard garden. Ranjit cleaned the backyard garden with his wife. Since then, he spent a part of his daily time with his wife to do cleaning and plantation in their garden. It slowly turned into routine work. Every morning he would visit his backyard garden to check the growth of the saplings which he planted, he would water the plants and also put manure. Slowly his interest in farming grew and he spent most of his time gardening, his hard work turned his backyard garden into a small vegetable farm.  For him, the picture of the garden was turning out to be quite pleasing. Vegetable farming attracted him so much that he spent the whole day planning new things for his small farm. The neighbours also started visiting his vegetable garden and they started purchasing vegetables from his garden.

Ranjit took some time out and visited some of the lead farmers of his village and found that cultivation also can be done by installing trellises, he built three trellises and cultivated pumpkin, bottle gourd, ridge gourd, long beans and other vegetables into it, so by the end of the lockdown, he was able to earn a good income by selling vegetables from his home.

The FARM team while visiting their villages came to know about Ranjit’s farm and visited his house to meet him. He narrated his story of how he came into vegetable farming and how he can earn money from it. Later the FARM team supported him with indigenous seeds and saplings.

Last winter he cultivated tomato, chilly, bottle gourd, bitter gourd, long beans, coriander, radish and other vegetables and received a good harvest. He earned a good income of INR 28,000 by selling the vegetables from home as well as from the nearby market. Within a short period, he became a lead farmer in his village.

He is very supportive of FARM program and whenever there is training, he actively participates. With support from the FARM programme, Ranjit was able to repair the old trellises and also install two more trellises so he could start an optimal space utilization model and cultivate vegetables like chilly, coriander, onion, brinjal and roselle plant under the trellises.

As a farmer, he is very supportive of other farmers of the village and never hesitate to share his farming knowledge with others. Tezpur Social Service Society (TSSS) also invites him as a resource person in training at the village level. Two batches of farmers came to his farm for exposure from other project villages of the FARM project in March 2021. “The most pleasant thing we can see is that the 2021 lockdown has not affected him in any way, this time even without a job, his income continues”, Said Wilson Kandulna, Programme Coordinator, TSSS.

“Now the whole family is involved in the farming of organic vegetables, and I have stopped working in Arunachal Pradesh, I am happy doing organic farming and shall continue to earn a livelihood by growing organic vegetables,” expresses Ranjit.