Bhadeshwar Nath Farmer Producer Company Limited

Lakhnahat Babhaniyav is where we stay, out in Basti. Our little office is at Kiran’s house. It’s not much more than a room with some chairs and a lot of registers. We named ourselves Bhadeshwar Nath Farmer Producer Company Limited because that name means something to us here. We are just farmers, plain and simple. We grow what the season allows and try to help each other out with the selling part. Basti is a place where everyone knows everyone else’s business, so starting a producer company was easy in some ways and hard in others. We spend a lot of time discussing things like water and who has the best seeds this year. It isn’t like those companies in the cities. We don't wear suits. Most of the time, someone’s kid is running around or there is tea being passed around while we work. We have to deal with the mud when it rains and the dust when it’s dry. That is just how it goes in Uttar Pradesh. We didn't have much of a plan at first, just a few of us saying we should team up. Now we have more people involved, and it feels like a real community effort. We just keep moving forward, one season at a time, trying to keep the families fed and the fields green. There's always something to do on the farm, so we stay pretty active all day long.