Jitendra Verma, aged 35 years, a resident of village Maniadih of district Giridih of Jharkhand. In 2002, he became full time worker of Ekal Vidyalaya and later on he got training about organic compost & farming. This encouraged him to make pits for organic compost. Besides he developed a small nutritional garden in his house. Encouraged by the remarkable output from this, he ventured to undertake horticulture (esp. vegetables) on a large scale in his fields which were mostly rocky, arid and non-fertile, but with the use of the cow dung manure, the same soil turned soft and fertile, retaining moisture for longer time and yielding large quantity of vegetables of different variety which were tastier as well as more lasting.
Now he is growing vegetables like Potato, Brinjal, Spinach and other leafy green vegetables, Papaya, Cauliflower, Cabbage, Carrot, Tomato, Ginger, Onion, Garlic, Pumpkin, Bitter guard etc- on a large scale. He grows his own saplings for these to make things more economic and reliable.
However this journey was not without obstacles. Scarcity of water & cow dung came in the way. He solved them both quite diligently and appropriately by pumping water from the lower well to the higher well and then to the fields; and compensating deficit of cow dung by buying & carrying it from Giridih town 50 kms away itself. Now he is a champion of organic farming in the area earning around 5-7 lacs per annum.
