Bhograi : Two youths namely Prashant Tripathy of Haripur and Alok Sahoo of Batagram villages under Bhograi block of Balasore district, look to rebuild their once flourishing papaya farm that was devastated by the cyclonic storm, Amphan a month back.
Prashant and Alok had dreamt of becoming self reliant instead of running after jobs. They have been good friends since their college days at Bhograi Gramya Ucchasikshya Pratisthan, from where they completed graduation.
Since those days they had inculcated in themselves the entrepreneurial spirit to stand on their own and become frontline farmers of their district. After their graduation, they had started hybrid papaya farming.
“We will rise up again and make our living. Temporarily, Amphan gave us a terrible jolt which staggered our financial standing. Still we are confident that hard work will help us to restore the loss. If necessary, we may shift to farming of other crops,” the youths said.
The friends had taken a discarded orchard on lease for Rs 20,000 per annum. Later, they purchased hybrid papaya saplings for Rs 25 each, from a nursery in Bhubaneswar and planted those in the farm
Prashant and Alok had cultivated papaya on one acre of land. They were assured by the horticulturists that one papaya tree could yield over one quintal of fruits.
Notably, they had planted 900 saplings which cost them about Rs 1,35,000. After about three months, the papaya trees had started bearing fruits.
The trees have been hit by bacterial leaf blight disease.
Most of the papaya trees have been uprooted. Despite running from pillar to post, the district horticulture officials pay no heed to their plight.
Due to lack of support from the horticulture department, the youths were forced to draw the attention of Bhograi parliamentarian and Union Minister Pratap Chandra Sarangi and local MLA Ananta Das for some much needed aid.
PNN