In the year 2013, there was a lot of destruction due to the severe floods in Kedarnath. Due to the floods, there was a lot of disturbance in the lives of many people. During this, Hiresha Verma, a resident of Charba village in Dehradun and working in an IT company in Delhi, decided to help the flood victims. Leaving Delhi, Hiresha reached Uttarakhand and joined an NGO to help people. While working with the NGO, he noticed that many people’s houses were destroyed in the accident. Many women’s husbands and their sons had gone missing and she was not even able to feed herself. In such a situation, the idea of mushroom cultivation came in his mind to empower these women.
Talking about this, Hiresha said that the environment of Uttarakhand is not very conducive for farming. Due to this it was not possible to do traditional farming here. However, mushroom cultivation can also be done in a closed room and does not have to invest much in it. Hiresha talked to the women about this and they started doing organic farming in empty houses. In 2013, he started farming with 25 bags. During this, he made a profit of 5 thousand by investing 2 thousand. Encouraged by this advantage, Hiresha took farming training at the Krishi Vigyan Kendra in Dehradun. Today Hiresha earns a profit of Rs 1.5 crore annually from her mushroom cultivation.
Hiresha told that this task was not easy for her, although she did not give up. Starting with a normal quantity of 20 kg per day, Hiresha today has a mushroom farm equipped with modern technologies with a production capacity of 1 ton per day. Hiresha is giving employment to 15 people from this farm and has trained more than 2 thousand women till now. Apart from mushrooms, Hiresha also produces cheesecakes like pickles, cookies, soups, protein powders, cha and papads. Hiresha has also received honors and awards from various national and international organizations for helping farmers.