Gauri Deka, a horticulturist from Bezkuchi village near Patacharkuchi in Barpeta district has successfully cultivated strawberries. This is the second time he has cultivated strawberries in his field.
People from the Agriculture Department and other states have visited his field to see the strawberry cultivation and encourage his efforts.
“I was very happy when people from long distances came to my agriculture field and expressed their surprise in seeing this cultivation, it also provided me with a good income from a small plot of land,” said Gauri Deka.
Deka , who spent his life doing agricultural work has proved that there is ample scope for strawberry cultivation in the area which is very profitable compared to other kinds of cultivation.
At the beginning, he was unaware of the high demand of the fruit in the market. But with some experience from last year and a lot of encouragement from the people, he has started selling the fruit from his field with new spirit.
The strawberry sells for Rs 400 per kg and the traders rush to his field when they need the fruit. This year he planted one thousand saplings of strawberry collected from Himachal and Punjab varsities. He also collected some plants from KVK Barpeta.
He has also preserved some of his last year saplings. He acquired the one sapling for Rs 65.
He informed that this year’s production of strawberry has increased from last year. If a plant gives five kgs of strawberry he will be able to cultivate 5000 kgs of fresh strawberry this season.
Deka never uses chemical pesticides and fertilizer from the market. He only uses vermi-compost and cow dung in his cultivation.
With his organic approach to farming, he has already earned a name for himself and the strawberries from his field are in high demand in the local market.
He is also training his young son Khagen in the strawberry farming. Deka’s son also helps him in the cultivation by collecting information from the internet. He wants to continue organic farming which has proved profitable.
This year he also earned well from selling brinjal in the market.
In his garden, there are chestnut plants, pears, various breeds of palms, mangoes and other vegetables.
He has also earned a good amount by selling plum. He informed that he has sold around 30 kg of plum at 60 rupees per kg.
In the past, he had also received training in agriculture at different levels. Currently, he has turned his garden into an agricultural research field from where any interested farmer can gain knowledge of farming.
Last year he also experimented with rearing broiler duck. He took a batch of 30 and within two months he sold per duck for Rs 600. This year too with the help of KVK Barpeta he started a batch of 130 ducks which are growing fast. As the demand of duck meat in the market is high there is ample scope for the unemployed youths to open such broiler duck farm. All his experiments have yielded positive results which can be emulated by other people.
