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Jagdish Prasad Parikh: A Plant Breeder, Poet and Local Orthopaedist Honey Bee network thrives primarily through active support of innovators themselves in discovering other innovations. The chain of innovation so formed provides sustainability to the network. The Honey Bee network can survive without any external support so long as this chain works. Shri Sundaram himself an innovator discovered Shri Parikh. SRISTI team particularly Sundaram and Pradeep K Singh have helped prepare this narrative. Readers are requested to add to this chain of scouting innovation. Limca Book of Records has also decided to include Jagdish Prasad's contribution in their next edition.
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Developing a variety of cauliflower which attracts attention of fellow villagers, experts as well as top level policy planners is a task no more beyond the capacity of ordinary farmers. Jagdish Prasad Parikh of Ajitgarh has achieved this distinction through his sharp eye for oddity and persistent efforts to select unique plants. Ajitgarh is a partly irrigated village in Sikar district of Rajasthan. The journey from Sikar takes around four hours to reach Ajitgarh. The town is situated on both sides of the road. On the eastern side there are hills with hardly any vegetation except grass. The population of the village is around 10,000 and 80 per cent of the villagers pursue farming. |
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Background "At one place met, one farmer and a city dweller’ They went into a debate on who is more important, Urban fellow said, "For recreation and getting cured you have to visit city" On that the rustic said, "we live in sylvan surroundings and take nutritious diet, Why should we bother to visit your hospitals" (Jagdish Parikh) Born on 4 th Feb 1947 in a Brahmin family, Jagdish Prasad Parikh has pursued several professions before taking up farming as a full time profession. He is famous for producing cauliflower weighing as much as 12 kg, six ft. long ridge gourd, three ft. long brinjal, seven ft. long bottle gourd and 86 kg pumpkin. He is a cynosure of the village for his skills as a local orthopaedist and for his effusive poems. His poems provide a vent to his frustration with politicians and the government machinery. While talking to him, two boys were brought who could barely walk to his house. They had sprains in their legs. His traditional method of treatment saw those boys running while leaving his place within a matter of few minutes1 . Such is the quality of his treatment.His maternal uncle Shri Jawaharlal adopted him when he was still an infant. He studied till the higher secondary level. Jagdish Prasad Parikh of Ajitgarh has achieved this distinction through his sharp eye for oddity and persistent efforts to select unique plants. For a few years he worked for a government undertaking in the oil sector at Assam. He learnt his orthopaedic skills from a Muslim healer who used to treat labourers in Assam. As he was the only son of his parents he was forced to quit his job and start farming on the field owned by his maternal uncle. He has four sons. Except his youngest son, others do not pursue farming. The eldest of them runs a dairy while the other two are into trading and transportation. Whenever his crop matures his sons help him in not only transporting but also in deciding where to sell the produce. He has 1.6 hectare of farm land, adjacent to his house. He has six buffaloes and three goats. Presently, he is focussing mainly on cauliflower crop but he also cultivates wheat, pearl millet, bottle gourd, brinjal, pumpkin and ridge gourd. The reason for shifting his focus to vegetable crops in general and cauliflower crop in particular is that it brings in recurring revenue. Last year, he earned a profit of ninety thousand rupees from his cauliflower crop only and that too without any chemical input. Shri Parikh is called ‘Gobiwala’ in his village and other neighbouring villages for producing big cauliflowers. He has presented several such cauliflowers to number of eminent personalities. Development of New Variety It all started in the year 1970 when Shri Parikh went to bring seeds from Char Darwaja area in Jaipur. There he saw some saplings of cauliflower in a farmer’s farm, which seemed very different. (Since then the landscape of that place has changed. In place of the farm, a number of residential colonies have come up). He borrowed a few of those cauliflower saplings from that farmer and planted these near the well in his fields. Fruits were white in colour and bigger than the normal size. He decided to make seeds out of a few selected big cauliflowers. Again, to develop seeds for the next year, he selected the biggest cauliflower. Seeds produced were used next year. He continued this practice for more than 25 years. The outcome of these 25 years of informal research has been the development of seeds, which produce cauliflower of average weight around ' He asked the boys to lie down on the mat with their back facing the sky. He pressed a vein near the ankle of the boy. And then pulled the ankle very smoothly. Before the boy could comprehend what was going on, he was cured of the sprain. Contd.....on next page |
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