The Leaders Accelerating Development (LEAD) Program of Deshpande Foundation, Hubballi, Karnataka fosters innovative and entrepreneurial thinking within college students by exposing them to social issues and by encouraging them to volunteer their time and effort into the community. LEAD ignites their latent talent to come up with creative solutions. LEAD is an incubator where innovation meets implementation, knowledge meets experience, social issues meet solutions and efforts meet impact.
Farmer is a backbone of our country. Most of our farmers belong to rural areas. Some of them are not aware about the schemes of Indian government. Due to the lack of knowledge about advance technologies in agricultural field, farmers are not able to enhance the food quality and quantity.
LEADer Disha Patankar and team from S.G. Balekundri Institute Of technology, Belgaum visited a place, Nagnur. This team of leaders surveyed the place, asked the villagers and local farmers about their problems. LEADers went to houses and spoke to them.
After the conversation in village, LEADers went to the farms. Farmers shared their problems. They told how the quality and growth of crop is reducing. To solve these problems leaders contacted Agricultural department and also the soil testing department. From there, officers told them to get the soil samples for testing. LEADers decided to complete the work on the same day. They started digging the farm and collected required amount of soil samples in a bag and submitted the bags to the soil testing department. Meanwhile in the project, farmers asked LEADers the reason why they are doing this project and why do they want to help farmers. Teaching the new technical ideas and schemes was challenging for LEADers.
At the end of the day farmers and other people from Nagnur thanked LEADers for helping them out.When Disha was asked about her feelings on completing the project successfully, she said “on being a farmer’s daughter she never worked in fields and she got that opportunity because of the project.” She always wanted to help farmers for the enhancement of crop and their quality. LEAD gave her that platform. She is looking forward for her new projects with the help of LEAD. It’s a message for youth, you have potential to do new things, and you know technology, so help the community with your new innovative ideas. After all its just one thing, “INITIATION”.
Q.When did you decide to help the farmers in Belgaum?
Helping the farmers was always on my mind but I didn’t get an appropriate platform. But when my college took me for a visit to Nagnur village of Belgaum as a part of lead cell activity, I felt it was the best opportunity to start up my dream of helping them.
Q.What inspired you for the noble work you decided to accomplish?
Everyday when my mom read newspapers and ended up with tears in her eyes for having read about the suicides done by farmers and for the suffering they had undergone, I felt something must be done by me to change this. And that’s how I started.
Q.Tell us about your educational background.
I completed my S.S.L.C from Karnataka Law Society High school, Belgaum and Pre-university course from G.S.Science PU college. Currently I’m in S.G.Balekundri Institute of Technology doing Electronics and Communication engineering.
Q.Who had been your greatest strength in your journey so far?
It has always been my parents who encouraged me throughout and S.G.B.I.T faculty and LEAD staff who constantly supported me in getting my ideas into action.
Q.What obstacles did you face in your journey? How did you tackle them?
The big obstacle was to collect people who can join me in doing my project as we had to work during holidays. But my faculty supported me and I got people convinced for the cause and yes, I ended up with a dedicated team.
Q.Please tell us about the financial aid of your project of helping the farmers.
Financial aid was given by Deshpande foundation and hats off to my college for providing us with good transportation service and meals.
Q.According to you, how can the government offer better help to the farmers? What better policies would you suggest?
Soil testing must be treated as most important criteria in agriculture by our government. It must be made compulsory for every farmer to conduct it. Every village should have it’s own soil testing centres so that it can be easily made available to the farmers.
Q.What are your future goals? What do you want to accomplish further?
Well, I want to continue providing aid to the farmers and help them to face the challenges they face every year in their fields due to climate change and bring some permanent solutions to their problems.
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Q.What piece of advice would you give to the people who would want to help the farmers?
When you feel moved inside by problems of the farmers, just stand up for your feelings and do the move. Once initiative is taken, entire society will follow you. But as an individual please take the first step.That’s all you need to do!
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