Farmer acheives ‘mission impossible’

##BIG-IMAGE# Adilabad: Sanjeev Ramdas, an impoverished farmer from Jaala near Shirdi in Maharashtra, nursed a deep interest for farming. . He migrated to Anandguda in Jainath mandal of Adilabad district along with his wife and father from Maharashtra and started pursuing his passion.

Ramdas, who never owned even a small piece of land created wonders cultivating cucumbers and water melons in the sandy Penganga riverbed.

The River Penganga will receive inflows during rainy season. However, it is mostly dry during the rest of the period. There are sand dunes in the river bed which are full of rocks.

The young farmer, along with wife and father, leveled the sand dunes and cleared the rocks by working hard day and night. He raised cucumber and watermelon on the sandy soil by sourcing water from the river.

His efforts have resulted in lustrous harvest which is more than that of the crops raised applying fertilisers. Ramdas is getting a yield of three or four quintals of cucumbers on alternate days and sells them at Rs 4000.

Water melon would be ready for harvesting in another 15 days. Ramdas is hopeful of earning Rs 2 lakh during the current season, if everything goes well. The family lives near the farm to save the crops from stray cattle and thieves.

Traders are preferring cucumbers raised on riverbeds over that of those grown in fields because of their perceived nutritional value.

They are earning profits since these cucumbers have high demand from consumers. Ramdas says that untimely rains are causing a dent to his income and seeks support from the government during such periods.