From an IT professional who chucked it all away and started an experiment in Terrace Farming with guidance of a group “Urban Leave”, to one of the leading voices in the organic farming Purveitaa Kapadia has come a long away. The challenge was to create a completely natural and organic farming culture for the whole farming community in the village. Initial resistance soon gave way to acceptance as everyone saw the results and also understood the harm that chemical farming did to the farm soil, human body and water table. The high quality of the yield plus the growing demand from customers for organic food has created further growth opportunities.
A farming enterprise with a healthy, organic approach to business.
“I own a piece of farm land at Wada in Maharashtra and all my produce from this farm is naturally grown. It is genuinely organic farming. In co-operation with other farmers in the collective we provide each and every edible product required in a kitchen,” says Purveitaa.
Most of the things that are sold, are the produce grown on her farm as well as the other farms with whom she has created a working relationship. At times to meet customer demand Purveitaa even ethically sources produce from personally vetted local farms across India.
Value added services like making a mixture of rice and dal, millets and dals, preparing a mix of spices for special unique ready-to-use masala or even interesting chutney and pickles have become a good source of revenue for everyone involved.
Pulses, lentils, polished and unpolished rice, millets, special flours, medicinal spices, and unrefined oils – all these are available with the assurance of being chemical free and manually processed. Gluten-free and protein-rich millet that is now touted as a healthy alternative to maida or wheat is also offered. Exciting recipes are churned out using millet as a prime ingredient so as to appeal the everyone’s taste buds.
Farm labour is a huge universal challenge which the owner has to cope up with and keep the show going. A break due to unavailability of labour is not accepted, as the sowing and harvesting of crop cannot be delayed or expedited. At such times a farmer has to takeover and perform his best.
Purveitaa Kapadia: Building awareness and enabling sustenance
The main motive behind the current business model is to enable the marginal farmers to earn a living, which Purveitta does by offering them a fair value for their produce. Having served more than 50 customers the future goal is to increase the number to 200 till the end of the year 2021. This is something that will be possible with increased production and diverse offerings, since as of now Purveitta has seen exponential growth with the stocks quickly getting sold out.
Says Purveitaa “As a farmer I would want to tell all the consumers to please come and visit the farm and see all the efforts taken to produce food. It will also help in building more awareness ‘where the food is coming from and how food that we eat is directly in proportion to the health and well-being of human body”. To my fellow farmers I want to say, ‘adapt the old ways of farming like multi cropping vs mono cropping, apply traditional method of farming. It will increase production, keep the health of soil fertile, provide income and offer crop diversity.”
“The world has enough for everyone’s needs, but not everyone’s greed,” said Mahatma Gandhi, which applies to us Farmers today.
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