The sight of trees laden with persimmon, kiwis and apples refreshes you as you climb up a hill from the national highway in tribal Kinnaur district in the autumn months. A small trout farm on the hillside catches your fancy at once.
The beautiful village is Shudarang and the orchardist is Chhering Lamo, 46. She humbly offers garden fresh natural apple juice to every guest or tourist, who visits her house searching for greenery and fresh fruits.
“We keep 6 quintal apples separately every year and get them crushed for natural juice at Reckong Peo. This is something that anyone coming to our house loves to taste,” said Lamo.
Together with her husband, Atma Ram, who retired as a Health Supervisor over two and a half years ago, Lamo grows different types of fruits, vegetables and traditional crops on 12 bighas (2.4 Acres) of land. Out of this, they are doing natural farming on 8-10 bighas and have lots of people, locals and outsiders, visiting their farm to enjoy the serene and green environs.
Lamo stopped using chemicals on the entire land since the Himachal Pradesh government started promoting natural farming in mission mode through the Prakritik Kheti Khushhal Kisan Yojana (PK3Y) in 2018.
Her progressive endeavour in agriculture and horticulture is now a perfect example of farm tourism. Anyone would love to have a feel of the farm's fresh chemical-free natural fruits, juices and food, living in green and serene environs away from the hustle and bustle of the urban areas.
Apart from apples, pomegranates, grapes, kiwis and persimmon, Lamo’s farm has vegetables like capsicum, pumpkin, cabbage and cauliflower.
“We shifted to natural farming six years ago when my husband attended a training camp in Kufri under PK3Y. He came back and trained me in natural farming techniques. It has helped us promote our farm for tourism,” said Lamo.
“We were already fed up with chemical farming as it involved high expenditure and we were producing crops with chemicals in it, which were not good for health, neither for farmers nor consumers. So in 2014-2015, we decided and tried organic farming. However, we could not sustain that because it was a very expensive technique and we had to buy everything from the market,” she said.
She said with natural farming techniques, they are now taking mixed crops on the same farm, which our elders used to do. “We are back to cultivation of millets like Phaphda, Ogla and Koda after two decades, thanks to natural farming. We are using our seed for that,” she added.
She said earlier, they used to spend more than Rs 30,000 on fertilizers and pesticides. However, with natural farming, they do not have to buy anything from the market, except for jaggery and gram flour.
“Natural farming is labour intensive, but it gives higher returns in terms of money, taste of produce, shelf life. The soil health improves,” said Lamo, who works with her husband and son in the fields tirelessly every day.
Her orchard has 250 apple trees. “Since we shifted to natural farming technique, the production has increased and there is no fruit dropping and last year she plucked apples till December. The apple production has increased from 300 boxes earlier to 400 boxes now,” she said.
The family has a desi cow and has availed government assistance for Sansadhan Bhandar and Lamo has been sharing information as well as farm inputs with other women in and around the village to spread awareness on natural farming.
“We have a group of 25 women farmers where we make pickles and even flower garlands for marriages. That is a great platform to discuss and take natural farming further,” she said.
Follow us
