Kala Bisht is a diminutive woman, but in Dehradun valley she stands tall. The farmers in the area are in awe of her farming and entrepreneurial skills; it not only helped save her land but also set a precedent for other women. In fact, her fame will take the 35-year-old to Angeden valley in Switzerland next month, where she has been invited to teach better farm and fruit processing techniques under the Alps-Himalaya Exchange Programme.

Five years ago, Bisht could barely make ends meet. Along with her husband, Trilok Singh, an ad hoc employee in the Forest Department, she tilled a meagre two-and-a-half bighas of ancestral agricultural land at Ambiwala village. “It didn’t provide us enough food to last a year,” she remembers.

When Uttaranchal was created in 2000 and Dehradun became its capital, land prices appreciated. The couple had the option of either selling the land to the land mafia or continuing farming. Bisht took the tougher route; but she had a plan. She decided to give up traditional farming for experimentation and diversification.

With help from the Dehradun-based Himalayan Environmental Studies and Conservation Organisation (HESCO), a non-government organisation, she started a fruit nursery, a bee-keeping unit and a vermi composting unit on her land. She also ventured into fruit processing by first taking training in processing and preservation, then buying the fruit grown by local people in their homes and fields and subsequently making mango pickle and papaya chutney.

“Earlier, the villagers with one or two fruit trees had no option but to let it go waste, but now I buy all their fruit,” says Bisht, adding, “At every fair or mela organised by the ITBP, Forest Department or the Indian Institute of Petroleum, we get more orders.”

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