In the eastern Indian state of Odisha, a small bunch of engineers have created a new company to promote organic agriculture called Organic Soch. Dismayed by the levels of pesticide and contaminant use in commercial agriculture, the start-up is working with 4,000 farmers to change consumer taste and provide direct markets for organic produce.
It all started when railway engineer Atul Choudhury was returning home from work in his native eastern state of Odisha in India. He saw something that forced him to stop. A farmer was spraying something on his crops with his face covered by a mask.
Curious, he went to the farmer and asked what he was spraying. As he walked towards the field, a strong waft of acrid smell hit his nose making him cough out loud. The vapors were burning his eyes, and it was coming from the pesticide that the farmer was spraying.
‘These are medicines!’ the farmer said to him. ‘The pests have been eating up the crop. If I don’t spray this medicine they will destroy the entire farmland with not a single grain left for us to eat, neither you nor me. My family will also die out of starvation.’
Medicines?! That got Choudhury interested in agriculture. He learnt about all the problems of inorganic agriculture, farmer indebtedness, overdose of pesticides, the cancer train that carries mostly farmers…
