Moringa Engineer and Mushroom Maverick

Dear Reader,

When you hit rock bottom, the only way is up. It is one of my all-time favourite sayings. Why? Because I have hit rock bottom more than once.

However, I will reserve my story for another newsletter. Today, I will tell you about Jasal K, a handball player who dreamt of joining the police or army through the sports quota. However, a knee injury changed his life. 

With academics not being his forte, Jasal was stuck at home, unsure what to do next. That’s when he heard about mushroom farming. He took training and began with just ten beds of oyster mushrooms. That was 12 years back, he told my colleague Chandhini.

Today, his farm in Kozhikode, Kerala, clocks a monthly profit of Rs2 lakh on a turnover of Rs5.5 lakh. Jasal is a happy man, helping others start mushroom units with spawns made at his lab. 

My colleague Riya spoke to Anil Jaiswal, who grows saffron in the heat of Indore. An HR head with top companies, including 12 years at a Japanese MNC, Anil saw the blooming fields of saffron during a family vacation to Kashmir.

He knew the medicinal value of saffron and the conversation with the growers in Pampore prompted him to try its cultivation indoors. He clocked Rs8 lakh from the first harvest in his 320 sq ft room and there has been no looking back since then. Anil also trains people in saffron farming through online and offline classes. 

Last week, I spoke to Sagar Khare, a mechanical engineer-turned-farmer from Solapur in Maharashtra. While a high-paying MNC job is a dream for many, Sagar quit as the project engineer for Adient, the world’s largest automotive seat maker, to pursue farming. 

He first improved the soil quality of his family farm and then researched new-age crops. Moringa seemed to be the most profitable with high demand and low production. He now earns a profit of Rs6 lakh per acre with organic moringa farming. How? I have detailed in the story.

Our Sunday piece is on Talatal Ghar, a seven-storied palace with tunnels and mazes in Assam. Built using a mixture of sticky rice and swan eggs, the palace is said to conceal the royal treasury of the Ahom dynasty, which ruled Assam for 600 years. 

Happy Reading!

Warmly,

Rashmi