New Year, New Resolutions & New challenges

As we were ending 2013 & looking at 2014 it's been disturbing to get calls from 2 of my ex-team members! Both calling for same reason "Madhu, have been given notice, Jan 31st is the last day"! Both have engineering degrees both have work experience(?) and both are not getting any jobs in the current market. Reasons may be plenty about why a person is not employable,why in current job market updating ourselves is so important and so on. But interestingly both had couple more thing in common! Both weren't in touch with me for last one year, assuming that as usual I am traveling and both didn't know I had switched over to farming for last one year!

As everybody does while giving advise(ಮೂಗಿನ ನೇರಕ್ಕೆ ಮಾತನಾಡುವುದು), I told them agriculture is the best bet and "if you are worried about job why don't you go back to your villages and take care of the farms you have(both are from farming families)"! Both are newly married with children and were surprised at my advise to move out of Bangalore ! Both gave me reasons about their financial situation, what their family members will think if they go back to farming after studied engineering(!!!) and so on..

This made me think why is it that we are ready to stick to a job without knowing how long it'll last but not ready to take up something which has everlasting demand(more than investing in real estate & schools) and give a secure feeling! I understand that standard of living (w.r.t the western world's yardstick) will come down, I know for fact there'll be some cash crunch situation as in any other business. But was not able to understand why is working in a farm/doing any business is considered lower in social status than working for someone else to earn a salary(is a big deal). How come working for someone else is more secure than working for ourselves!

Moreover, after going through some stuff from Sarvagna vachana's was surprised to see we are proving even Sarvagna wrong :-) Check out this vachana!

ಕೋಟಿ ವಿದ್ಯೆಗಳಲ್ಲಿ ಮೇಟಿ ವಿದ್ಯೆಯೆ ಮೇಲು
ಮೇಟಿಯಿಂ ರಾಟೆ ನಡೆದುದಲ್ಲದೆ ದೇಶ
ದಾಟವೇ ಕೆಡಕು ಸರ್ವಜ್ನ

Sarvagna has been candid in explaining why Agriculture is the best education & how a nation could be in trouble if it neglect farming(not farmers! we don't need any subsidy for that matter)

And Check this out!

ಬೆಕ್ಕು ಮನೆಯೊಳಗೆ ಲೇಸು, ಮುಕ್ಕು ಕಲ್ಲಿಗೆ ಲೇಸು
ನಕ್ಕು ನಗಿಸುವಾ ನುಡಿ ಲೇಸು, ಊರಿಂಗೆ
ಓಕ್ಕಲಿಗ ಲೇಸು ಸರ್ವಜ್ನ

Coming back to Swathi Farms, 2013 ended with around 150 plus new fruit plant being added. We are planning few more in the coming days as we have decided to go along with our plan, building a multi-crop farm based on fruits, veggies, spices & few medicinal plants. It's been inspiring to know farmers who are silently doing their bit not getting any appreciation from people who consume or want to consume healthy food. This year focus will be to maintain all the plants as much as possible and plant more & more variety during monsoon. Have been checking to see If I can get a helper on continuous basis as well. Though it'll cost good 50K need to take initial costs overruns to design the farm per our liking. Focus also would be on growing more and more veggies to reduce outside consumption!

That's all for now will keep you all posted! Have a wonderful year ahead!