Agricultural Product Development
Alternative crop movement, the idea is to offer Landless, small and medium farmer new opportunities to earn more from the same land and survive. An alternative to conventional crops (Wheat, Cotton, and Sugarcane) those are not at all profitable for small farmer now a days. Souring input costs and ever depleting returns pushed the small farmers down to the lower limits of poverty.
Many small or medium farmer has grown Quinoa, Stevia, Moringa and other crops on our motivation but got frustrated when market does not offer an appropriate price and they don’t have any point of sales. To answer this difficult question we have decided to come back to the area of our strength and develop ready to use products our self and make them available for consumers.
We are working on all the options to make them available, through some health practitioners, online and on the shelf of some selected stores etc.
We have made a long list of products and started developing their ready to use forms and packaging etc. Our major lines are:
- Quinoa – The Super Food
- Moringa (Suhanjna) – The Miracle Plant
- Stevia (Zero calorie herbal sweetener)
- A wide range of everyday use Herbs
- A wide range of Herbal Teas
- Our traditional and forgotten Cooking oils
- Gurh (processed through traditional methods)
- Products from Rosa centifolia & Rosa damascene
The other Goal we have set for ourselves is to go Organic. Working closely with farmers in our network by bridging between researchers and farmers. Exploring the green ways to avoid chemicals and improving yields both in quality and quantity. Our lines of products involve a wide range of crops spread over a wide area and different soil types. A diverse expertise is also required. It is not at all an individual’s activity. It requires a team or a network of likeminded individuals. We have succeeded in getting a good number and the network is growing. We are getting Sesame seeds (Til) and Caster beans from Layya, Mustards oil seeds (Sarsoon) from Hasilpur, a variety of organically grown every day herbs and sugarcane from Suay Asil near Lahore, Moringa from Kasur and Quinoa from all over Pakistan (Okara, Jaranwala, Kasur and Mirpur Khas)etc.
In Suay Asil one of our friends got a piece of land on lease from Auqaf Department which was not cultivated since long and declared as Banjer Qadeem. We have taken it as an opportunity and started cultivating this virgin land without using any of the manmade, chemical or artificial fertilizers or pesticide and herbicide etc. So whatever we are growing on it is organic and chemical free. We are planning to grow vegetable on it as well. The products we are collecting from other farmers, we are asking them not to use any chemical, so these products are chemical free.
Organic Wheat and Low Arsenic Rice are also in our wish list.