Bal Krishna Balami's Path To Economic Growth

An inhabitant of Dakshinkali municipality, Bal Krishna Balami lives with his grandfather and nine other family members. Their main occupation is agriculture, and they mostly cultivate tomatoes, cucumbers, beans and other vegetables to be sold to the local market. 

Before participating in the Small Farmer Agriculture Training Program at Ashkelon College in Israel in 2016, Mr. Balami was a teacher in a local school for eight years. He decided to leave because of his passion to help develop his family farm. 

Through the program, Mr. Balami learned about modern agricultural technologies, drip irrigation and pesticide management. In Israel, farmers are harvesting tomatoes, green chillies, capsicum, cucumbers, green pepper and many other vegetables on a commercial scale. 

The knowledge he gained through the program in Israel motivated Mr. Balami to put all his resources and efforts into turning his small family farm into a big commercial one.

After returning from Israel, he purchased 0.86 hectares land from his earnings in Israel and registered the farm as a BK Agriculture farm to cultivate vegetables on a large scale. 

Currently, there are ten bamboo tunnels where he grows tomatoes, capsicum, cauliflower, cucumber and potato. He has found that vegetable farming is more profitable than other cereal crops in his area, so he is hoping to build a high tech agriculture farm to make the systematic procedures more efficient and effective. 

Mr. Balami’s yearly net income has reached Nrs. 800,000, but he is determined to increase it. His farm now employs all his family members, in addition to other villagers. Many youth visit his farm to get information about vegetable farming. Mr. Balami hopes he can continue to inspire youth in his region.