Rice and wheat are the most important food crops all over the world and carry a special significance for India. The Indo Gangetic plain stretching from what is now Pakistan, right across Northern India to parts of Bangladesh has been our bread basket over the millennia. 

Farmers in the village of Gihri Butter near Bathinda had traditionally grown green chillies for supplying to the nearby city. This crop was grown over 250 acres in this village but over the years, farmers faced the onslaught of deadly soil borne fungi which decimated their yields. They tried all possible fungicides available in the markets but the disease would recur in a more serious form after every application of chemical fungicides, this rendered the cultivation of this hitherto profitable crop, unviable. This saw the decline in acreages of chillies in this village to just 20 acres.

Amaninder Singh is a very enterprising farmer from village Agaul near Nabha in Punjab. He cultivates about 21 acres of land in which he grows about 4.5 acres of chillies and paddy in the remainder.