Dear Dasvandh members and Pagri Supporters,

In addition to Faridkot area, we have now expanded our activities to the districts of Mukhtsar and Bhatinda. We are helping and educating farmers on organic kitchen gardens as a way of helping farmers to transition to organic and natural farming. In this way, the farmers can grow clean food for themselves and their familes, and save themselves money on food expenses, that they might otherwise spend in the market.

Please continue to support and donate so that we continue to help these farmers.

Harinder Lamba

Secretary, PAGRI

This activity is being transitioned from establishing as demonstration and teaching centera multi-faceted activity consisting of:

1. Soil testing of farmers soil with guidance on additions of organic nutrients.

2. Guidance on the growing of organic produce and

3. Help with direct and online marketing of organic produce and processed goods.

This project is going through a revision. It is thought that organic and natural farming can be better taught through educational videos and manuals.

When farmers better undersatnd what these farming modes really mean then they might better be able to transition out of green revolution agriculture.

Balwinder and Gurlal installed a Pagri Center sign by the main road and described the activity of the center. Fruit trees and sugarcane has been planted. Structures are being installed for Vermi-compost, mushrroms and desi RIR (Rhode Island Red) cheickens for eggs . The weather now in winter is cold and foggy. Organic crops have been planted too. when weahter improves, the teaching activity of farmers will commence. The Sign that has been installed reads, "PAGRI INTEGRATED NATURAL FARMING AND HORTICUKLTURE TRAINING CENTRE GURU KI DHAB, FARIDKOT (PUNJAB) - Balwinder Singh and Gurlal Singh. "Zehar mukt sabzi vikrayta kender". This will become an impoortant training center for teaching of farmers, helping them and for the marketing of self-certified organic produce, seeds, nursery plants, processed food products, mushrooms and free ranging chicken eggs. Area farmers will also be helped market their produce and products. 

Please see our new photos! 1.     Organic, Horticulture and Integrated Farming Demonstration and Training Centre The project leader for this project (Educating farmers for organic farming) is Balwinder Singh, who is a great practical knowledge of organic farming and teaching other farmers. He is assisted by expert farmer Gurlal Singh, who has offered his farm to be used as the center.
The objective:
Teach farmers the proper techniques for growing organic crops of highest quality at a lower cost, by non-chemical methods, using less water, and compatible with the ecology. It has started with organic 180 fruit trees and planting of sugarcane. Oher crops will be added in due course.  Vermi-composting (using earthworms) is being added.
 
This center will be Pagri’s cardinal training Center in Punjab for all farmers throughout the state. It will supply Desi seeds and nursery plants along with the training.
 

This project needs your support! We are doing wondrous actions to reform Punajb's agriculture away from green revolution farming that has hurt Punjab so much!

We are excited to tell you that we have started a new Pagri Organic, Horticulture and Integrated Farming Demonstration and Training Centre near Faridkot. The project leader for this project is Balwinder Singh, who is a high level expert of oreganc farming and is continuing to learn and teach others. He is assisted by Gurlal Singh, who is a knowledgeable farmer himself.
 
The objective: Teach farmers high quality methods of the proper techniques so that they become fearless farmers who can grow organic crops at a lower cost, through clean (non-chemical) methods, use less water, and understand the ecology of the soil, plants and insects.

We have started with organic horticulture with about 180 fruit trees and planting of sugarcane. It will be planting other crops organically and vermi-composting. It has been teaching farmers about all this and will be teaching them more.It has started with organic horticulture with about 180 fruit trees and planting of sugarcane. It will be planting other crops organically and vermi-composting. It has been teaching farmers about all this and will be teaching them more. 

Many thanks for your support. Out of the funds you donated, Pagri is investing in new activity that will set up three farms as demonstration and teaching centers. This will initiate new activity on Organic Farming, Organic Horticulture (fruit trees), and free ranging Desi Chicken eggs. The monsoon season till the end of August is a good time for added planting of some crops, so this will be done on all three farms. All farms will have Pagri posters as well as signs indicating the type of activity at that farm.

The project leader Balwinder’s farm of about 4 Kanal (half acre) size will become an organic farming teaching center. Balwinder will be planting various crops and each planting will be a teaching opportunity or the right and wrong ways to do organic farming – these will be mainly farmers that live near him.

We are converting farmer Gurlal’s farm to a full-scale organic farming and horticulture demonstration and teaching center, with the addition of a marketing stand. Unfortunately, in the past, the use of heavy tractors and machinery has created a Hard Pan (or subsurface compacted layer) that needs to be broken through is the planted fruit trees are to prosper. So, we have hired machinery to dig the four foot (4 ft) deep holes to go below the hard pan. We will let you know the number and varieties of fruit trees planted – this should happen in July as soon as the fruit tree saplings are available. This will be a teaching opportunity to teach nearby farmers about organic horticulture, with Balwinder doing the teaching with the assistance of Gurlal.

A Covered Marketed Stand will be set up as Gurlal’s farm is at the intersection of a major road and a link road. This marketing stand will be used to sell all the organic produce from Gurlal’s and nearby farms. This stand will be used to sell nursery plants, seeds of Desi varieties of crops (consumers do not like the green revolution varieties of wheat - the rotis taste bad), and small-scale processed products.

Self-Certification: Pagri will implement and enforce a strict discipline and self-certify produce that it sells as Organic. On the Gurlal farm passing by customers will be able to see first-hand what he is doing. Arrangements will be made to test the crops sold to make sure that the crops are free of pesticide and herbicide residues. Non-organic crops will also be sold, but these will be labeled or sold accordingly. The motto will be “We will deliver better than promised”!

We are converting Baldev’s farm to a full scale “Free Ranging Desi Chicken Eggs” demonstration and teaching center under the leadership and supervision of Balwinder. Baldev has two acres and already has expert level experience of growing chickens. We are helping him buy 500 baby chickens of the RIR (Rhode Island Red) variety and helping him with the materials needed to build a “Khudda” or structure to protect the baby chickens. Baldev will build the structure with his own labor – that’s his contribution to the cost. When this is set up, this will be used as a teaching event by Baldev. Experts from the local KVK (Krishi Vikas Kendra) in Fardikot and from PAU (Punjab Agricultural University) will also be invited to teach, as needed.
These chickens will grow to the egg laying stage by November. Baldev will help other farmers initiate their own free ranging desi baby chickens and fertilized eggs if they want to so the hatching themselves.

Free Ranging Desi Chicken Eggs sell at a premium and the marketing aspect will advertise these as such, and full control and self-certification will be done to ensure that the chickens are actually free-ranging, which means that after the first month when the baby chickens need starter feed, the chickens will only by eating fresh produce from the farm and roaming around and eating insects and green materials from the farm. A brand name will be selected and Baldev’s chicken eggs  and those of other farmers will be sold under that brand name.

We will be posting photos, videos and reports of these activities as they are developing.

Dear Pagri Supporters and well wishers,

Our Secretary Harinder Lamba visited Faridkot March 7-8, 2023 and was hosted by Balwinder Singh. Gurlal Singhji drove us around – thanks! Here are the action items and description of the visit.

Faridkot – Action Items
1.     Help 2-5 farmers with Desi chickens for eggs, together with chicken coop (shed) and enclosure to protect from stray dogs (all visited during trip). As my description will show, broilers are a very sad story and even one farmer who is rearing them, wants to desperately get out of raising them (these chicks were all sickly and expenses very high). Desi chicks may be procured from PAU at a discount. For each farmer that is helped we will need to know their annual farm income so that we can compare it with their income after we help them.. Also, Balwinder will need to begin providing regular reports that can be posted on website and on Dasvandh.
2.     Gurmail Bhullar – NRI from Norway, Moga district – wants to do Integrated Farming on 1 acre (NO COST TO US – need Balwinder to spend a little time to guide – receives same chickens as Item 1 – he should be able to afford these on his own)
3.     Fruit trees – 2-3 farmers to begin with – consider our Gurdaspur expert as supplier also (see below), or procure them from PAU at a discount.
4.     Demonstration plots:
a.     Help Gurlal Singh (1.5 acres) to develop full Integrated Model – he is fully willing.
b.     Jasmeet Singh (owner of Implement business with turnover of Rs. 5 crore) is willing to have his 4 kanal farm near his house used as demonstration plot and integrated farming model (NO COST TO US – Balwinder is already helping him and would need to spend time)
5.     Marketing Stands:
a.     In summer heat they need a shade protected stand in middle of Faridkot town near their current stand on Tuesdays and Saturdays at 4:30 pm
b.     A marketing stand at corner of two roads right next to farm of Gurlal Singh – major traffic here – this will help our areas farmers including Sukhwinderpal Singh who is nearby
6.     Get help for about 40 Bee Keeping farmers for their honey processing (see below). We met with two farmers, one with 250 boxes and one with 120 boxes

Description of Visit to Faridkot District with Balwinder Singh
(March 7-8, 2023)

Harvinder Nishkamji arranged for me to stay at the Dental College guest house (thanks to Baltej Singh also). It felt unique to be staying at a dental college residential campus where dental students reside. Kabal Singh, who was visiting from Edmonton Canada joined us for the visits on the first day (March 7). I believe he has expertise as a soil scientist. On the second day, Harvinder Nishkamji joined us. I stayed the night with him and early morning he left me on his scooter to the bus stand where I took the Volvo bus to Chandigarh.

Kabal Singh’s thoughts and recommendations: Punjab has alluvial soil and it needs chemical and organic fertilizers. For grain, stalks and roots of 1 Quintal, of 15-20 Kg of nutrients only 5-7 Kg are left. If you rely only on organic fertilizer, in 2-3 years all the nutrients will be gone at current rates of production (?). He had sent an article by SPS Brar to Lal Singhji. Fertilizer increases yield by 3-4 times, and one needs to do soil test and apply fertilizer accordingly. Excess fertilizer is bad as it leaches down (or creates Algae blooms in lakes and causes a deficiency of oxygen in the water – it’s called biological oxygen demand or BOD).

All of the cow manure will not provide enough fertilizer for Punjab. Still, every piece of organic matter should be recycled, and Nitrogen fixing plants should be used to the maximum – Alfalfa, peas, beans, burseem, etc. Nonetheless, Gurbinder Bajwa is indicating that after rice harvest, if the straw (parali) is used as mulch rather than burned, the chemical fertilizer need is less., less water is needed, and the plants are more robust and may need less pesticides and herbicides.

Visits to Farmers at their farms

1.     Jagmeet Singh – organic farmer – with a good section on many fruit trees. He was growing peaches, cjiku, papaya, guava, and Chinese guava (sweet). He was also growing both small and large leaf methi. Oats are used as feed for cattle. He would like to have goats and from sugar cane process jaggery.
2.     Jasmeet Singh – He owns a Rs 5 crore business making farm implements – his 4 kanal farm is managed as an organic farm by Balwinder – this farm can be used as a demonstration plus education site. He is willing. We will attempt to convince him to include implements needed by small farmers in his business (Gurbinder Bajwa has designed some of these).
3.     Kuldeep Singh & Harjeet Singh – Bee Keeping farmers with 250 and 120 boxes respectively – met at Kuldeep Singh’s house and not at their bee keeping farm – there are about 40 farmers that badly need help with a honey processing plant (estimate about Rs 20 lakhs for a plant that would meet the needs of the 40 farmers – this plant would sanitize the bottles, filter the honey and separate the wax extract and bee pollen. They also have beeswax and bee pollen (very tasty and nutritious) as side products they sell. Bees provide valuable pollination service for free. Kuldeep Singh also does wheat and rice on a 2.5 acre farm. Price of honey about Rs 350-400 per Kg – but they struggle against adulterated honey on the market (He filled out the form).
4.     Udeekwan Singh: This visit was amazing. He had a large area under organic garlic (with mulch) as well as a very good onion nursery (paniri). He had a very good organic farm, has won many awards, and received a lot of training. One video was posted and another awards related video was posted later. He would benefit from action of a chicken section. He is an expert on growing organic garlic  and onion paniri (nursery).
5.     Gurlal Singh: Owns a little over 3 acres and rents about 1.5 acre - He drove us around everywhere for two days. Some videos taken on his farm were posted. On many aspects he demonstrated a very high level of knowledge of crop varieties and organic farming. Goats can be added but need labor to manage for grazing.  He showed a few desi varieties of wheat on his farm that he was growing which local people want to eat – they don’t want to eat the high yielding green revolution varieties. (He had filled out form). He is willing to convert his farm totally to the integrated model.
6.     Balwinder Singh (Our Project Leader): His own farm is about 4 kanal and is an amazing example of the organic approach – understand what is going on (pests, weeds and yield issues) and modify strategy accordingly rather than take short cuts by attacking with chemicals straight away – the organic approach works best and is the lowest cost in all areas except labor cost. His son is imbibing his knowledge – that’s the kind of education we need!!
7.     Baldev Singh: He only raises chickens for meat and had about 2,000 birds in a brick and concrete shed. His broiler chickens were very unhappy and sickly and hardly able to stand (this was noted at least another roadside location where desi chickens were happy and robust and white broiler chickens were sickly). These need expensive company supplied feed (cost of each bag went up from Rs 1,300 to Rs. 2,200 recently, while the price fetched by fully grown chickens was the same or may go down. He seemed to have a good knowledge of organic farming. He is desperate to transition out of the broiler corporate controlled trap to desi chickens for eggs. (He has filled out form)
8.     Baljit Singh: He has a little over 3 acres. This farmer is not only an excellent organic farmer but also has taught other farmers. He has a meager Rs. 2 lakhs annual income and would really benefit from the addition of Desi Chickens (He has filled out the form).
9.     Marketing Stands: Visited a marketed stand manned by Joginder Singh and Jagsir Singh (organic farmers) in Faridkot town. This they do at 4:30 pm every Tuesday and Saturday. Their produce sells well and is in demand. Problems are that they are located at a very traffic congested site and that as summer temperatures rise it will get very hot. They badly need a covered shed constructed at slightly less congested location. Also, Gurlal Singh’s farm is on the intersection of major road and a side road – it would be beneficial to construct a small covered roadside farm stand to sell their organic produce at the intersection – this could be used by more than one farmer.
Some of the things they mentioned that would help them:
1.     Desi Free Ranging Chickens which they can sell under their own brand (First thought of Pagri to is to start with this).
2.     Goats – but these need labor for grazing and milking
3.     Cold storage
4.     Honey processing
5.     Training for the above

Many many thanks to those who donated and have supported this project and Pagri.

The transition from the Rice-Wheat Trap created by the so-called "Green Revolution" (industrial farming) to organic and natural farming is going to be slow. But we need to get out of that trap that leads to high cost tractors, implements, seeds, chemical fertilizer, and poisonous herbicides and pesticides - which often leads to high debt and often suicides. As a result, Punjab's soil and water resources have degraded. 

Agriculture is an ecological process of microbes, insects and organic matter restoring soil fertility so that the "living soil" cooperates happily with a happy plant, and sunlight and small amounts of water to create produce that is clean, healthy and nutritious. Its not a chemical industrial process based on chemical warfare on all living things except the crop - as is practiced in Punjab and the world over.

So, here our leader Balwinder Singh is beginning the slow but sure transition to organic farming by teaching a small group of farmers the new techniques that help them do low cost clean agriculture. These techniques can be much lower ibn cost, enabling us to cover more farmers.

Here we are working to identify and support willing farmers who will implement new lower cost organic farming type practices, so that these farmer’s fields can act as demonstration sites and motivate other farmers to change their practices from the current wheat-rice monocultures. The objective here is to create a revolution among small farmers through actual ground level action. This also needs a parallel activity to convince consumers of the higher value of organic produce, so that they are willing to pay more for it (as now happens in the US).

When this process succeeds, we will be ready to expand its area and to other farmers.

Video from Balwinder Singh on importance of Pagri Support for
Educating and Helping Farmers to Transition to Organic Farming
 
Please watch this short video from Balwinder Singh, the leader of this project.

YouTube Video

https://youtu.be/Baxt4lUwVv8

He thanks Pagri for initiating the support for this effort. He points out that it has been the high cost of chemical green revolution agriculture combined with glut caused depression of prices that has led to the increase in farmer suicides. Also, mono-cropping like in wheat and rice with hybrid seeds of a few varieties has been a vulnerable kind of agriculture, and that now there is a need for transition to diversity in crop varieties and a bigger emphasis on traditional varieties of seeds. He is educating, guiding and encouraging farmers to transition to organic farming methods by visiting them in their farm fields. He emphasizes that this is the way to improve Punjab’s soil, water and air and restore the state back to the “Rangla Punjab” of bygone times. This is also a good way to help and save small farmers.
 
Please support the effort by donating to this Pagri project so that we can help more small farmers and help the needed transition in Punjab’s agriculture.
 
Thanks!

Pagri is pursuing organic farming by encouraging existing farmers, forming a group of farmers under the leadership of Balwinder Singhji (an acknowledged expert), and is in the process oc convincing some of them to set up demonstration projects on their farms in the winter months. Our process will be slower but methodical.

Your donations will help this process get established!

Dear Well Wishers,

We are really excited about this project as we have a very knowledgeable and motivaed person leading this activity. After many years of "green revolution" type agriculture, it is difficult to get a farmer to begin to switch to Orgainc Farming - the process has to be gradual and the farmer needs guidance and understanding. Experience elsewhere ahs indicated that when a farmer makes the switch, there may be a year or two of adversity, but then the farmer's income increases as the cost of inputs is low. 

With Balwinder Singhji's help we have gotten started and are supporting him in this activity and plan to support him until we acheive a high level of penetration of organic farming and the sale of fresh and processed organic produce. 

Please donate generously as we need to support this project effectively. We are far from the fundraising goal and need your help to reach it by the end of 2022.

Harinder Lamba

Secretary, PAGRI

PAGRI continues to support the activities that will improve the incomes of farmers in Punjab and educate them towards types of farming that require less expensive and less environmentally damaging methods. We are providing support for the farmers market in Faridkot near the Punjab Agricultural University campus that assemble twice a week. We are in the process of hiring a person to man a table at the market, with PAGRI banner, flyers and  educational materials.