Fifteen-year-old Arjun Ashok from Mithrakary in Kuttanad recently achieved a remarkable feat by winning the Agriculture department’s award for best student farmer (schoolboy) in the State. What made the achievement all the more sweet was that he scripted the success story in farming after battling challenges posed by recurring floods.
Arjun was drawn to farming at a very young age and never looked back. “I learned the first steps of farming from my mother. A MGNREGS worker, she identified my penchant for agriculture and encouraged me. I began cultivating vegetables on my own, albeit on a small scale, at the age of 10. When the COVID-19 pandemic forced schools to shut down, I used most of my free time to better understand agriculture and expanded cultivation,” says Arjun, a Class X student at St. Xavier’s High School, Mithrakary, for whom schooling and farming are equally significant.
