Madikeri: His busy hands weld and mend metal objects every day. His tiny workshop at Shanivarasanthe is a landmark by itself. Though the workshop can pass off as just another place repairing or making metal commodities, this workshop is special because it belongs to ‘the farmers’ engineer’.
Meet AD Mohan Kumar, the magician whose expertise has changed the lives of the local farmers.
Kumar makes agricultural implements used by the local farmers and he has been a silver lining for the local farmers in ways more than one. Most of the equipment produced by Kumar are affordable and cost-effective. Secondly, he picks all the material required for producing the machine from scrap shops and thus adds value to waste!
A B.Com graduate from Hasan, Kumar, who hails from an agricultural family never thought of leaving his village in search of a job. Instead, he stayed close to his home and farm and decided to open a workshop that would not only help him earn a livelihood, but also make some good to the farming community of the region. His decision has reaped him rich dividends.
A year after opening the workshop, he released a chicken de-feathering machine, which became immensely popular. The machine started having demand from far off districts and the local farmers started looking up to Kumar for solutions to their problems. His innovative de-feathering machine can be seen in each and every chicken stall across the district.
A sprayer machine made by him too became popular because this machine can be attached to a Hero Honda bike to spray pesticides and chemicals to pepper vines and areca trees. A trolley made by him for carrying manure can be fitted to the bike to carry as much as 2.5 quintal manure.
Timber cutting machine, cardamom drier, ploughing machine, de-weeding machine, borewell recharge filter etc came as a blessing to the entire farming community here. The ploughs developed by him can be fitted to bikes and cycles too.
After all the accomplishments, the farmers’ engineer feels that he is the richest man on earth. “The smile on the faces of my fellow farmers is my biggest remuneration,” says Kumar, who has never developed machines for the sake of profits.
He says that he will keep looking around, identify the problems of the farmers and try to develop low-cost solutions so that people retain their faith in farming.
