Imphal, January 11: It started with sweating all day tilling hard with just spade and other hand tools without any modern machinery.

But Ahongshangbam Gambhir is now a successful farmer reaping the fruits of his own labour.

Gambhir was earlier a grade IV electrician in Manipur Rifles.

Unable to run the family with his meagre salary, he set his eyes on fields taking a bold initiative with a firm determination.

But Gambhir had his own share of failure too.

Before he took to tomato cultivation, he tried his hand in rearing chicken which turned out to be a failure.

Interacting with The Sangai Express at his Heigrujam Part I residence, Gambhir said that he started cultivation of tomato on a paddy field about quarter of a hectare in size at Heigrujam Maning Maha Koireng Loukon.

When he first hired a tractor to prepare the land, the tractor owner happily came to till the land.

But when the owner came to know that the field was full of pebbles and stone chips, no tractor owner agreed to till his field.

A small stream locally called Sajirok flows in the middle of Maha Koireng Loukon.

During the monsoon it overflows.

As his field lie just beside the stream, it often deposits pebbles and stone grains in his field, explained Gambhir.

Taking out pebbles and rock grains using double-bitted axe and belcha with hand, tomato was planted in about quarter of a hectare in June/July 2006.Against Rs 6,000 spent on tomato cultivation, Rs 50,000 came as profit, said Gambhir.

In the same year, he earned Rs 20,000 against Rs 3,000 spent for second cropping.

However, because of too much rainfall last year, there was drastic reduction in tomato harvest.

At present, Gambhir is cultivating tomato in one sangam and a half after taking a loukhai on lease, he informed.

He is now able to make triple harvest in a year.

He is cultivating Namdari 815 (planted in November-December) and Namdari Suraksha (planted in June-July) varieties of tomato.

Going together with Gambhir to his tomato field, this reporter observed that a tomato plant bears at least 50 tomatoes.

There were some plants bearing more than 100 tomatoes.

For his successful cultivation of tomatoes, Gambhir gave credit to the agricultural programmes and Khungangi Thouram and Chithi-Paokhum programmes being broadcast by AIR Imphal.

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