A BEND IN THE RIVER
NABANITA DAS 33 NURSE-TURNED-ORGANIC FARMER, POTIA GAON, ASSAM
Every year, Potia Gaon, a village near Jorhat on the banks of the Brahmaputra, sees massive devastation caused by floods as the mighty river overflows. Many villagers here gave up farming and even relocated to other areas. Nabanita Das, a nurse at the government civil hospital, had always dreamt of becoming a farmer but didn’t have enough land. With villagers leaving their farmland in this area, Nabanita, in 2014, decided to try her luck here. With help from two workers, she started tilling an area on the banks and planted mustard, aubergine, cucumber, spinach, cauliflower, cabbage and capsicum. “There were days when I had to till the field all alone in the rain. But the hard work bore fruit and, in 2016, I was able to buy seven bighas of land away from the river bank. I took another nine bighas on lease,” says Das, who was ridiculed for taking on a ‘man’s job’. “Only my sister and brother-in-law stood by me,” she says.
And the floods weren’t the only problem she faced—wild elephants proved another unpredictable problem. She had to spend Rs 2 lakh, half of her first year’s profits, to construct a steep mound to stop the elephants from reaching her crops. Her success after two years encouraged her to give up nursing in 2016 and engage in agriculture full-time. Today, her two farms not only produce multiple crops, including different varieties of paddy and lentil, she has also started a nursery and poultry farm. More importantly, she has gone 100 per cent organic, the reason why people from even 50 km away come to buy her vegetables. “Till now, I did not have to go looking for a market as my yield was limited. Currently, I earn Rs 50,000 every month from one farm, but now I need a stable market,” says Das. She’s now looking for a mobile van to sell her produce in Jorhat and surrounding areas.
“More than the vehicle, my
success will depend on positioning my crops as organic. When people come to my farm from far away, wasting fuel, I don’t feel like charging them extra. But I cannot continue like this as I must get value for providing clean, organic food,” she says.
Nabanita gets little state support (her success story did bring state agriculture minister Atul Bora to her doorstep though), but she’s grateful to two agriculture officers, Deepak Sarma and Irshad Ali, who encouraged her and provided technical know-how. She now hopes to inspire other women to come out and work the land. It won’t be easy. As Nabanita says, “It’s easy putting up photos with your crop on social media, but standing alone in the rain and sun and doing the hard work, that is the real test of character.”