Indra Raj Jat and Seema Saini from Jaipur, Rajasthan, shared a vision to integrate agriculture with tourism.
The college friends rented out 1.5 hectares of land in Rajasthan’s Khora Shyamdas village, where they started sustainable farming and animal husbandry.
The farm promotes agro-tourism and hosts its guests in mud houses.
The duo have trained 10,000 farmers in organic and integrated farming and encouraged them to take up agro-tourism too.
They also adopted integrated farming methods to grow different types of vegetables, fruits, medicinal plants and grains like bajra, barley, wheat and so on.
“As we are following a sustainable farming model, we prepare everything from animal feed to farm manure within the farm itself. So, we don’t have to go out for anything,” says Indra.
“Other than the vegetables and grains, we also sell dairy products, spices, and value-added products like pickles. But we never had to market them outside the farm,” Indra adds.
The duo hosts about 20 families a month in the mud homes that they have built.
The mud houses were built with the help of local artisans, using mud, cow dung, and a kind of grass for their roofing.“People love to stay in it as it’s a replica of the traditional village houses seen in Rajasthan,” Indra adds.
Through the Green World Foundation, they have been training farmers to adopt sustainable approaches in farming like organic farming and integrated farming, alongside agro-tourism.
Moving forward, the duo hope to train many farmers in low-cost integrated farming methods.