Tanahun, December 22:

If somebody had said, ‘agriculture is uneducated people’s profession’, they would have been right some years back. Lately, a lots of educated people are taking up commercial farming as a profession because it can fetch them double the income they get as a lecturer or a teacher.

Many a teachers have taken up commercial farming and Janardan Pant of Tanahun, Chowk VDC Hatiya is one of them. Three years back, he was teaching in Adikabi Bhanubhakta Multiple Campus. He spent three years with students in classroom. Pant, who was a lecturer of the history, however, changed his mind after he felt that he could contribute a lot to the society and earn a decent living for himself also through agriculture profession.

He quit teaching students history in campus but teaches farmers now.

When he quit teaching three years ago, which he had been taking as a profession for 17 years to be involved in agriculture full-time, everyone who knew him thought he went crazy. But his determination was undeterred. “I just neglected them with a firm belief that economic reforms can be brought only through development of agriculture in Nepal,” he said.

Against the conventional thinking that agriculture as a profession is not for the educated, he started his career in agriculture by cultivating Avocado (Naunifal), three years ago.

In our traditional Nepali society, sons follow their fathers’ footprints when it comes to profession. But in his case, it just happened the other way round. He followed his elder son Binayak’s footprint. He joined him in commercial farming. He earns Rs 1,50,000, from farming, annually.

His son had started commercial cultivation of Avocado way back in 1983. “I could not keep myself out of what my son was doing as a successful farmer – he was making a huge profit,” he said, adding that one need not go to a foreign land to earn a decent living.

If one is serious about one’s own profession,” he told The Himalayan Times.

He has specialised in cultivating Avocado plants, which he sells across the country. He was able to

export around 4,000 its plants last year.

“Avocado, which is a fruit used like a butter on loaves, has a good market price,” he said. Besides faming at Balifant of Tanahun’s Purkot VDC, he has also started commercial farming in Kalanki, Kathmandu. He claims to be the first man to start commercial farming of Avocado in Tanahun district.

Costing Rs 300-a-kg, tourist hotels are the good market of Avocado.