Bihar: During the unrelenting ordeal of the pandemic, thousands of people lost their livelihoods. It was also the time when many people looked for an opportunity and opened their own businesses. Sunita Devi is one of them. During lockdown, Sunita began her small startup and now she is successfully running her business. 

Who is Sunita Devi?

Sunita Devi is a resident of Bareja village of Saran district in Bihar. Her husband is Satyendra Prasad and both of them are high school graduates. Sunita’s husband used to make ayurvedic homemade medicines, but due to the lockdown, his work came to a halt. 

The couple has two children. Their elder son is currently completing his bachelor’s while their younger son is still in school. 

During the lockdown, Sunita started doing vertical farming at her home. She desperately needed to find a means of earning for her family, so she started growing mushrooms in her home gardens. 

Fondness for farming

Sunita has always been creative and has liked farming since her childhood. She shares that when she was a kid, she would collect all the broken containers in her home and would plant seeds in them. Then, she had never thought that she would employ this activity to earn money someday.

She shares that one day when she was selling old house items, she saw a pipe on the seller’s handcart. Her creative mind was instigated, and she bought the pipe, added some soil to it and put it on the roof. Later, she added seeds in it. 

After a few days, she noticed the growth of tiny twigs in the pipe. She thought that this idea might actually work. She asked her husband to buy 6 more pipes; she did the same with all the other pipes. After making the soil fertile, she would add seeds of cabbage, brinjal, tomato, chillies etc. to the pipes. 

Fertilizers at home

Sunita has successfully provided training for vertical farming to 200 women. She prepares her own fertilizers at home to grow her plants organically. She also helped Mithilesh Prasad, a resident of Delhi, to make vertical farms in her house. 

So far, Sunita has been able to grow potatoes, radishes, spinach, lemons and more. Interestingly, she also makes seeds at home. 

Making the seeds

Sunita shares a method to prepare vegetable seeds at home. When all her vegetables turn ripe, she would pluck all of them out except two. For example, she would let two brinjals remain on the plants until they would dry completely. After these vegetables dry up, their seeds are removed from them and are stored for the next year’s farming. 

She prepares fertilizers from cow dungs. She believes if one is careful and diligent towards the growth of their plants, they would not need to buy anything from the markets. Plants need to be nurtured with much attention and patience. 

A surprise to the agricultural science

The officials from Krishi Vigyan Kendra visited her home to inspect the vertical farms. They were astonished to see the cultivation of cabbage in her house. 

When Sunita displayed her vegetables in an exhibition, she was awarded with the Krishi Abhinav Samman. Now, she receives offers to provide training about her farming methods to other farmers. Sunita is sent to cities outside of Bihar to train more people like herself. 

When asked about her income, Sunita says that her focus entirely remains on educating more people about her farming methods than earning a huge sum from the sale of her vegetables.