Soya, so good

Soyabean is popularly regarded as a health food, but Bacchittar Singh would like to tweak that recipe a bit. For this simple farmer from the...

Soyabean is popularly regarded as a health food, but Bacchittar Singh would like to tweak that recipe a bit. For this simple farmer from the tiny Deh Kalan village in Sangrur district, it8217;s proved to be a wealthy diet as well.

8216;8216;I came across soyabean products for the first time at a trade fair in Delhi in 2002. At that time, I was producing seeds for potatoes, brinjals, hybrid chillies and musk melon. I even had an outlet to sell my produce directly to consumers. I was wondering what to do next8212;I didn8217;t want to go back to rice-wheat8212;when I stumbled across soya,8217;8217; says Singh.

The farmer with eight acres of land decided to learn the ropes right: He enrolled for a week8217;s training at the ICAR8217;s Bhopal institute to grasp the manufacture of soya products such as milk and cheese.

But the first venture was a failure. 8216;8216;My friend Kuldip Singh and I sunk Rs 3 lakh into a plant, but the products were not upto the mark and we couldn8217;t market them properly either,8217;8217; says Singh.

After Punjab Agricultural University failed to help him determine where he was going wrong, Singh decided to go back to ICAR Bhopal. The institute sent a team to Dev Kalan to help standardise the entire production process and even devised a glitzy hand-drawn cart that gave Singh8217;s products a unique visibility as it travelled from village to village.

8216;8216;Whatever BK Soya Agro Products is today is because of Dr S S Gill, director, extension, at PAU, Dr Nawab Ali of ICAR Bhopal and the out-team at the Agriculture Training and Management Association,8217;8217; says Singh.

With 22 soya-based products selling under the BK brandname8212;including milk, paneer, burfi, namkeen, pakodas et al8212;in kiosks across Sangrur, Singh now feels the four acres he turned over to soyabean is not enough. So his new mission is motivating neighbouring farmers to grow the crop and sell it to him.

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While the supply route is yet to be established, the destination8217;s already set: Ludhiana. After that, Delhi? Singh can make it happen!