A farmer in Bihar's Jamui district has pulled off something most people wouldn't dare attempt in peak summer. Dhruv Kumar Singh, who lives in Mangobandar village under Khaira block, has grown a crop of garma paddy on his farmland. Paddy is normally cultivated during the monsoon season, but garma paddy is grown in the summer months and demands far more effort than a regular season crop.
An idea from his father, a technique learned in Bengal
Singh says farming has run in his family for generations. The idea of growing garma paddy came to him one day from his father, after which he decided he too would cultivate paddy through the summer. Knowing the idea alone wasn't enough, he travelled to West Bengal to learn the finer points of the technique before returning home to start preparing his field.
The hunt for seeds, and help from an elderly man
According to Singh, his biggest challenge was arranging seeds for garma paddy. He reached out to several large seed stores and other shopkeepers across the district, but none of them had the seed in stock. In the end, an elderly man who had carefully preserved the seed came to his aid. Once he got the seed from him, Singh prepared its nursery.
No labourers showed up, so he did it himself
Singh had planned to raise the crop across roughly 2 bigha and had readied paddy seedlings for that much land. But when it came time to transplant them, he could not find any labourers. Rather than give up, he and one other person worked together to prepare the field themselves, eventually transplanting the paddy across about 4 kattha of land.
Ready to harvest in a week, and three crops a year
The crop is now on the verge of forming panicles and looks all set to ripen. Singh says the paddy should be ready for harvest in about a week. The biggest gain from this experiment, he says, is that he can now grow three crops of paddy in a single year, while most other farmers in the area manage only two.
Already preparing for the next crop, bigger plans for next year
Even before harvesting the current crop, Singh has begun preparing seedlings for his next round of paddy. He says that by the time these seedlings are ready to be transplanted, his field will also be ready to receive them. Singh added that he is now planning to expand garma paddy cultivation on an even larger scale next year.
