Bero (Ranchi), Nov. 13: Potato economy is more recession-proof, a young man living in Mumbai discovered two years ago.

In 2011, Md Asique, then a 22-year-old shippie in Mumbai, received a call from his father Md Khalil, a potato farmer in Bero block, 40km from Ranchi’s city limits, asking him to come back home and farm.

Living in India’s biggest commercial metropolis, Asique didn’t laugh away the suggestion. Instead, he packed his bags and moved back to Bero.

When rural parents want youngsters to study and move out to cities to get white-collared jobs, farmers in Bero block, the state’s biggest hub of potatoes, onions and green peas, do the exact opposite.

They want their children to farm.

Khalil, aged 58, is one of the biggest farmers of Kesa village, Bero. He grows potatoes and some onions and green peas on his “30-35 acres”. The father of four educated sons called back his youngest to farm because of two reasons.

“I couldn’t manage on my own any more and I was sure farming meant a good life for Asique too,” Khalil said.

When Khalil speaks of the good life, he knows what he is talking about. In Bero, which annually grows 3-3.5 lakh tonnes of potatoes, large-scale farmers like him earn between Rs 7 lakh and Rs 11 lakh a year. The average earnings of farmers hover around Rs 3.5 lakh a year.

Farmers own vehicles, including cars, tractors and two-wheelers, as well as a host of electronic appliances. Televisions are common.

Though Khalil is a “poverty-induced school dropout”, earnings from farming helped him give his four boys the best education he could.

“My eldest son Md Iliyas, an engineering graduate from BIT-Mesra, is a deputy general manager in a corporate house in Pune. My second son Md Shohrab is a gold medallist in anthropology from Ranchi University and preparing for his UPSC. Third son Md Imtiyaz is a government employee. The youngest Asique is a farmer by profession,” he says with equal pride.

This season, Khalil has grown potato across over 30 acres, all of which is ready for harvest.

“I am hoping to strike a good deal with buyers,” he smiled when asked to comment on the potato deficit.

“I bought a car, a WagonR, last year. This year, I will buy a tractor. And yes, I’d like my son to take up farming,” said Bhola Oraon (40), a farmer from Murto village of Bero block.

Oraon, a labourer’s son, graduated in geography from Marwari College, Ranchi University, in 2000. But instead of searching for a job, he took up potato and onion farming.

“I approached it like a business venture, cultivated on a large scale and earned enough to educate my brothers. One is with the CRPF and other with Indian Army. My son Harsh studies in an English-medium school in Nagri,” Oraon said.

He added that Bero block had some 193 villages and hamlets where farming potato and onion changed the face of the economy.

“We sell our produce in Bengal, Odisha, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh,” said proud Oraon.

Agreed Sunder Sahu, one of the biggest potato-onion dealers at Bero wholesale market. “Farming alone has changed Bero’s economy. It has not only brought good money to farmers, but also created opportunities for us to expand our business,” he said.

Most of Bero’s villages are electrified. Farming, however, continues to be low-tech. Tractors are visible, but self-dug wells irrigate fields. “Our greatest blessing is the soil and climate,” Khalil concedes.

Though he didn’t comment on the political ramifications of the present potato crisis, he offered one suggestion to chief minister Hemant Soren.

“If the state government sets up one deep boring for every 10 acres and ensures 24/7 power supply, we farmers can change the state into another Punjab,” Khalil promised.