"I tried organic for one year - without telling anyone."

"To be honest, organic farming has changed more than just my way of farming. I have become an animal lover; I want to take care of the animals, of the beings that surround us. I wasn’t like this before. When it gets very hot and dry, we irrigate our fields, and some wild deer or other animals come and destroy the irrigation hose. Some farmers chase them away; others even put poison out there to get rid of them - when all the animals want is water. So I started putting buckets of water next to my field so that they can drink water there. Little things like that. But with all these little things, organic agriculture has transformed my entire life.

And it's only been three years since I started with organic farming. At that time I took part in a government course on organic farming. At first, I was quite sceptical about it. But they said all the inputs like fertilisers and pesticides can be produced at home. So I thought I would give it a try. Through the government program, I have learned the techniques, how to take care of the soil, how to prepare botanical extracts to protect the plants against pests. But I was not sure whether it would work. So I tried it on one acre of my land at first. I tried it for one year - without telling anyone in my family about it. I didn’t want to make them uneasy with me trying out crazy things that wouldn’t work out - but it worked. At the end of this year, I harvested, and the harvest was good. I was making more money in the end than from the other fields because I saved a lot of money on the inputs. I told my family about it, and since then, I have converted my whole farm to organic.

On the seven acres of my farm, I am growing a wide range of crops like cotton, sorghum, and groundnut as well as medicinal plants and spices - all with organic methods. So over the years I have learned a lot more about organic farming. But what has definitely helped me a lot was participating in trials with SysCom in my field. Every year since I started organic cotton on some parts of my fields we try out new techniques together with the SysCom team. Exchanging with the experts brings a lot of benefits to my farming.

I am proud of what I have achieved in farming – but the light of my life is my family. Together with my wife, we live with our two daughters and one son in a house not too far from our fields. My oldest daughter will soon graduate from high school. She is the best in her class and studies very hard. When she makes it to the top 100 students of the state of Madhya Pradesh, she will get a college scholarship. Her favourite class is maths, so she wants to study engineering or mathematics in college. I am very proud of her and believe she can achieve all of her dreams."

Mahendra Singh Mandloi, 42 years old, and his daugther Janvi, 16 years old, live in Chhoti Kasrawad. Mahendra is participating in the SysComs on-farm research since 2021. Since then, he has also been a registered organic cotton farmer with Remei India Ltd.

More portraits

fibl.org: Faces of Organic Cotton