Beena’s world fell apart when her husband returned from Gulf with paralysis. From a homemaker she had to take the responsibility of being the breadwinner for the family to take care of her husband, ailing parents and two young children. Organic farming gave an opportunity to start something with little capital, yielded quick results and enough flexibility to take care of her family also. She started with a meagre 35 cents of land but expanded her activities to two acres in the neighboring land without having to pay lease. Her day stretches from 3 a.m. in the morning to late in the night. With her indomitable spirit, hard work and keen mind she has today evolved into a very successful agriculture entrepreneur who not only grows produce but also provides value added services like catering, nursery products etc. There isn’t an area in farming that she hasn’t tried: vegetables, fish, terrace farming, aqua phonics, diary, poultry etc. She has also started a catering service and can provide food for a few people to groups as big as 650 people. The fact that she uses poison free organic products gives huge credibility to her catering service. In between she also finds time to feed her husband and parents who cannot eat by themselves. She is indeed the Queen of integrated farming and value add services. And she credits organic farming for changing their life for the better.

Chandran Master believes in walking the talk. As a teacher, he did not want to restrict himself to giving advice to children; he wanted to set the right example for his students through his action. The path he took was to take up organic farming and expose his students to love nature, animals, and soil. He gives hands on experience to his students in his farm on growing paddy and vegetables without poisoning the environment and food. He has also formed a collective of Organic farmers to sell the organic products.

Mohandas inherited his passion for agriculture from his father who used to send truckloads of vegetables to Tamilnadu from Kerala in the 1960s. Throughout his entire life, he has retained this passion for agriculture , even though his job as a police officer and later as an NRI at Saudi Arabia took him away from home. He used to grow vegetables in the police stations as well as the quarters. As soon as he saved enough money from his stint in Saudi Arabia, he bought 6 acres of land and returned to his first love- farming. He moved to organic farming when he realized the adverse impact of using chemical fertilizers and insecticides. He has now expanded cultivation to over 11 acres and successfully produces a wide range of organic vegetables.

A teacher turned K.S.R.T.C Conductor, Narayanan, has been involved in farming throughout his life. Due to the tremendous passion towards farming, he sold his land in the town and procured one acre land in a rural area. The K.S.R.T.C job helped him in sourcing high quality seeds and plants from across the state. A strong proponent of organic farming right from the start, his innovative mind came up with ingenuous solutions to the problems that he faced as a farmer- He identified and used specific local herbs to protect the crops from the attack of wild boars; he came up with a recipe of locally available herbs to protect plantains against insects; he used the rice gruel to accelerate the growth of mango tree. These are a few examples of how he has adapted locally available material to solve the farmer’s problems. He also shares his knowledge with others.