HARNAM SINGH: PASSION LEADING THE MAN TO SUCCESSFUL STRAWBERRY FARMING

I am Harnam Singh, and I have done Graduation in Arts, Diploma in Software Engineering, Diploma in Networking Engineering, and presently, I am pursuing Diploma in BSc Agriculture. Earlier I was also obsessed with the idea of going abroad like my other friends and getting settled there, but after the conversation with one of my friends, I came to know that life in abroad is not that easy and you have to do hard work and face many hardships to maintain a simple living. So, after that I decided to stay in Punjab and do something for my own motherland. I started farming with my father along with my studies. The idea of strawberry farming came into my mind when my father brought six seedlings of strawberry from PAU for kitchen garden and it grew out well and produced good yield. I started strawberry farming in 2011 with 6 seedlings and after that gradually with the time, the number of seedlings increased to 20 and then to 50… and today we have 1 lakh strawberry plants in our farm. The whole farm is stretched in the area of 3.5 acres. I generally prefer natural way of farming and very rarely use fertilizers by the consultation of PAU experts.

I have also taken place on rent in Shimla to cultivate strawberry seedlings. Every year production of strawberries in my farm is very huge, so I sell some of the produce myself and the rest I sell it to big shops and vegetable markets of big cities. Today, I am earning profit in lakhs. I don’t have workers in my farm on permanent basis, I hire them usually in the season of strawberries.

Currently, I am living with my father, wife, a daughter and a son. And my future plans is to expand the strawberry farm business to greater extent. I also help 15-20 farmers every year and guide them about strawberry farming free of cost.

I wants to convey the same message that I experienced myself in my life- if you have enough resources with you, then start utilizing it efficiently rather than searching it elsewhere. The youngsters of Punjab should start contributing to their motherland instead of going abroad because they can also earn good profit even by staying here. The young people should understand that migration to foreign country is not the solution of their problem. The hard work they are going to do in another country, the same hard work they can do here also and achieve success, they just have to recognize their skill and specialized field.