Chhindwara’s sweet corn village turns around the lives of farmers

By Sandeep Pauranik

Chhindwara, Feb 13 (SocialNews.XYZ) Madhya Pradesh's Chhindwara district has shown that agriculture can be a profitable business as many villages here have made their own identity by producing sweet corn. These villages are recognised as the 'Sweet Corn' Villages.

Chhindwara is the district where maize is grown in an area of about three lakh hectares, but in the last seven-eight years, the farmers here have adopted farming of sweet corn that has brought a big change to their lives.

Jitendra Kumar Singh, Deputy Director, Agriculture Department, says that about 500 farmers of ten villages of Umreth area of Parasia block are cultivating sweet corn in an area of 1,000 hectares. These are conscious and progressive farmers who are getting good profit by cultivating three crops -- potato, watermelon and sweet corn -- in a year.

Bijakwara is one of the villages making its identity as 'Sweet Corn' village. In this village, a large number of farmers were cultivating native maize, the profits of these farmers were less and many times there were big losses due to the weather. During the past decade, not just they transformed their farming but have also enhanced their income.

Presently in Bijakwara, 36 farmers are cultivating sweet corn in 160 hectare area, their crop is growing not only in Madhya Pradesh but also in Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh. This year these farmers produced about 2400 metric tonnes of sweet corn, which has earned them an income of Rs 3.60 crores.

Guru Prasad Pawar, a big farmer of Bijakwara and who played an important role in giving a new identity to the village, used to be a teacher, but is now recognized as a progressive farmer. He says that at present, he farms in an area of 65 acres, in which he cultivates three crops, sweet corn is one of them.

Responding to how he started cultivation of sweet corn, Pawar says that in the year 2013-14, the Agriculture Department encouraged the cultivation of sweet corn and now his income has increased manifold as compared to earlier. Farmers of many nearby villages have also started cultivating sweet corn.

Pawar says that he will provide better education to his children, but will not encourage them to get a job as he believes that what they can earn from farming could not be attained in a private job.

The cultivation of sweet corn has also brought a 'big change' in the life of Narad Pawar, a farmer of Chhawari Kalan village here. He says that sweet corn is cultivated in the neighboring state of Maharashtra and he used to cultivate native maize earlier, in which he had lost more than what he earned. For the cultivation of sweet corn, he took training at his level and gradually adopted it, at present he is cultivating sweet corn in 15 acres, making a net profit of Rs 40,000 per acre.

Farmers in many villages of Chhindwara are getting attracted towards the sweet corn as apart from increasing their income, it is also changing their lifestyle.

Source: IANS