Shrimp Farming in Muktsar, Sunflower in Fazilka & A Man on Mission in Kolkata

June

2026

In Inna Khera village, Sri Muktsar Sahib district, Rupinder Kaur and her family took advantage of the salinity of the soil to produce the region’s most profitable harvests—shrimp. Rupinder has built a thriving aquaculture enterprise that spans more than 35 acres and generates huge annual profits. Rupinder, who is a graduate in fashion designing and cosmetology, never imagined turning into an aquaculture entrepreneur. After attending a camp by the Fisheries Department in 2021, Rupinder and her family decided to take the risk. As a woman farmer, Rupinder received a 60% subsidy that eased off the initial investment burden. Meanwhile, after nearly two decades, owing to the union government’s Pradhan Mantri Dhan-Dhanya Krishi Yojana (agriculture scheme), farmers in Fazilka district are opting for sunflower cultivation. Fazilka district was chosen for the scheme due to its diversified cropping pattern. Chief Agriculture Officer, Fazilka, Harbans Singh Sidhu says that the administration has set a target of bringing 104K hectares under crop diversification out of the district’s total cultivable area of 248K lakh hectares. Farmer Harmeet Singh received sunflower seeds free of cost during a camp, but he had to travel to neighboring Haryana to sell his produce at an Minimum Support Price (MSP) of USD 81 per quintal. Harmeet says, ‘The crop yields nearly 10 quintals per acre, fetching an income of over USD 810 per acre.’ He said that the Panjab government should declare MSP for sunflowers to encourage more farmers to cultivate the crop. Another farmer, Mangat Ram of Lalowali village, from the same district pointed out that farmers could grow three crops—paddy, potato and sunflower—in a year, earning remunerative returns as compared to traditional crops. Concurrently, far off in India’s east, Jasmit Singh Arora from Kolkata has been engaged in the mango seed collection mission since 2017. He requests people to send him discarded mango seeds which he plants as saplings. Once they germinate and saplings are ready, he gives them to farmers in West Bengal and Jharkhand to plant them in the fields. Since 2022, Jasmit has collected over 2.1M mango seeds and distributed more than 800K grafted fruit trees to farmers, benefiting over 5K families (earlier coverage).