He Came Back From Rajasthan With a Method, and Tested It on Eight Biswa

The question a farmer actually has is not whether a technique works. It is whether it works here.

Lalaram, a member of Jamuna Aajeevika Adhikar Sangathan, decided to grow bitter gourd from seed he had retained himself, using a method he had learned on an exposure visit to Rajasthan. He did not report back on the visit. He brought the idea home, adapted it and tested it.

The record is unusually complete. Eight biswa, direct planting of the Aman Shri variety on 8 June 2025. First harvest 10 August, final picking 13 October: 127 days. Total yield ten quintals.

The costs matter as much as the yield. Because the seed was his own, the sheet assigns no seed cost. The land was his. Cow dung and jeevamrit replaced purchased fertiliser and fungicide. Irrigation is listed at nothing. Land preparation ₹1,000, labour ₹4,000. Total input cost ₹5,000.

Gross income ₹25,100. Net return ₹20,100. One row of the original bilingual form is mislabelled, so the arithmetic and units need a final check - but the value of this record is that dates, area, production and costs were captured together, at the time, rather than reconstructed later as a general claim about increased income.

Lalaram says the method worked, that he was pleased with the production, and that other farmers should try it. Before publication that should be re-recorded in his own words and his own language.

DEHAT did not grow the crop. It enabled a process by which a farmer could see a practice, question it and decide whether to test it. He supplied the seed, the land, the labour and the judgement.

On seed the climate argument is straightforward. Retaining your own seed and using biological inputs reduces dependence on purchases. One plot does not prove a method and no season is risk-free. What it does is widen a small farmer’s range of options, which is the practical form resilience takes.

Because the seed was his own, the sheet assigns no seed cost.