Neha Dhatawkar (Age 23), a student of PGDM (Rural Management) at WeSchool shares their experience about working in the lab…

As a part the curriculum of Rural Management program ,we had undergone the “ Exploring the grassroots” program at Jawhar (Palghar ,a major tribal  district near Mumbai  ) and  stayed at the BAIF campus where we could visit the seed bank , rain water harvesting unit  and  visit  Vanvasi village where BAIF is working towards improving the life of the tribals  through enhanced livelihood options thereby turning it into a model village. BAIF was guiding them to combat the vagaries of nature by adapting multi -cropping practices  called ”Wadi Pattern ” to increase the output substantially ,had introduced  solar street lamps, empowered the tribal women to set up SHGs that had started to  produce Herbal oil to become self-sustained and work within the community to battle malnutrition.  The tribals in the area were becoming better farmers, earn livelihood throughout the year, and avoid being manual labor and migration to cities.

Under the Global Citizen Leader program the students are given rural specific projects, which help us have a greater insight into rural opportunity spaces and their possible solutions. Currently ,I am doing a project “How technology could be used to transform farmers’ life?”

So when we heard that an Agri–Lab is being set up right in the WeSchool campus we were extremely encouraged .When we had our first lecture on Agriculture Economics and Agri input management surrounded by farming equipment, pots and containers of plants, herbal foliage and a green vertical wall in this outdoor lab, It was an amazing experience for us, taking us close to the rural environment. We are looking forward to many more such engaging interactions and experimentation not only with our own faculty but from Rural experts from diverse fields.

Any interesting project that they will be working on

We are looking forward to getting our hands dirty as we will be involved in sowing and taking care of the crop aimed at understanding the inputs required for farming and more importantly its costing .The produce will have to be marketed by us , so we are also going to learn supply chain process of agricultural produce, how it is brought to market and eventually reaches the consumers’ table.