ISAP Entrepreneurship series:Story 8 Growing with seeds “One can be rich working with companies but can never be satisfied”, says Harinder Singh a 40 years old progressive farmer from village Theltharke of district Gurdaspur in Punjab. A vast professional experience of 15 years in sales with various reputed companies could not deter him from his decision to establish his own Agribusiness venture. After resigning from his services with Sutton Seed Company, he joined the ACABC training programme at ISAP-Amritsar and after completion of the training he established “Punjab Agro Seed Farm”, a seed production unit in 2010. Initially with the handholding support of ISAP, he procured the breeder seeds from Hissar & Karnal in Haryana & Jhunjhunu in Rajasthan. He selected 29 farmers for contract farming with a cumulative land holding of 125 acres and distributed the seeds to them for replication. He provides complete handholding to these farmers during the entire seed production process in terms of latest technical know-how right fromland preparation, seed treatment, IPM, IDM, irrigation at critical stages, fertilizer application, proper stage of harvesting, post harvest management and other good agricultural practices. He emphasizes on the production of breeder and foundation seeds which he procures from the farmers at a premium of ` 200 than the market price/ MSP, whichever is higher. After experiencing the enhanced profitability through seed production, the farmers have now ventured into vegetable seed production also like peas and radish, apart from wheat and rice which was predominant. With the help of ISAP-Punjab, Harinder has got these farmers registered with Seed Certifying Agency of Punjab. He has also helped them to purchase modern farm implements like land levellers etc. on correct prices. With these efforts of Harinder has increased the productivity of those farms by 15 % to 20 %. Since he is considered as an innovative and progressive farmer, the seed plots under his contract farming are visited routinely by farmers of Gurdaspur, Amritsar, Tarn Taran and Pathankot districts to learn about seed farming and he is the main resource person for NABARD, PNB and ATMA for their farmer centric programs. His fields have also been visited by M.D. Seed Certifying Agency, Punjab, DDM NABARD and Lead District Manager, PNB. He has taken a loan of ` 15.00 lakhs from PNB bank, Batala, 2010 in for further expansion of his business. A part of the loan amount is used in constructing a storage facility with a capacity of 12 MT. Apart from the 29 farmers of contract farming, Harinder has trained a group of 50 farmers with the techniques of improved seed production. He has also employed 4 young farmers for inspecting the fields & assisting him in sales.He is doing a turnover of ` 80.00 lakhs annually.
Posted on: Tue, 16 Dec 2014 05:08:56 +0000
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