Bihar engineer Prabhat Kumar left a global career to empower local farmers. Through his NGO SumArth, he introduced cash crops, storage, and processing facilities, helping 25,000 farmers across six districts earn Rs 100 crore in the past decade.
Farming remains the backbone of India, but most farmers earn very little despite hard work. The rising input costs and unstable crop prices reduce profit margins. At certain level, the government schemes help, but many farmers still struggle to make farming truly profitable. No wonder, Bihar’s Prabhat Kumar received an advice from his farmer father: ‘Son, do whatever you want to do in life, but never become a farmer’. Following those words, Prabhat studied engineering, co-founded a healthcare company, and travelled to more than 25 countries. He achieved success, met influential people and won awards. But no matter where he went, his Bihari roots were pointed out, often with mockery. People would remind him of Bihar’s poor image, and most expected him never to return.
Those words left a deep impact. Prabhat realised that instead of chasing only personal success, he had a responsibility to change the narrative of his state. In 2015, he returned to his hometown in Gaya district and launched SumArth, a non-profit organisation to improve the lives of farmers, according to a report published in The Better India.
Changing farmers’ mindset
Farming in Bihar had become so unprofitable that many of Prabhat’s cousins and friends wanted to leave for cities to work as security guards, earning only Rs 5,000-10,000 a month. Staying in villages and farming did not seem worthwhile. But Prabhat believed that Bihar’s soil had the same potential as anywhere else. He convinced a few farmers to try horticulture crops like onions, pomegranates, and grapes. He even promised that if the experiment failed, he would personally help them get jobs in cities.
In 2015, he sent 10 farmers to Maharashtra to study modern farming methods. There, they saw a single farmer earning up to Rs 15 lakh from just one acre of land by growing horticulture crops. This was an eye-opener. They realised how limited their own practices were and returned with new hope.
The onion revolution
Back in Bihar, the farmers chose onions as their first new crop. Prabhat advised them to use just 10 percent of their land for this experiment. To support them, he invested in building a low-cost onion storage facility with cross ventilation. The results were remarkable. Farmers invested Rs 4 per kg on onions and sold them for Rs 10 per kg, earning Rs 1 lakh per acre of land. With storage facilities, they could keep onions for six months and sell them when prices were higher. For the first time, farmers saw their incomes double.
Introducing mushrooms for extra Income
The onion storage units were lying empty for half the year. To use the space, Prabhat introduced mushroom cultivation, which is grown in winter. This turned out to be another breakthrough. “Traditional farming involves recurring expenses for one-time income. Mushroom farming is the opposite, you invest once to procure the bags and then earn daily,” explains Prabhat. Farmers started earning steady and recurring income, which was new for them.
Expanding to more cash crops
After onions and mushrooms, farmers were trained to grow seed corn, baby corn, and strawberries. These crops gave quick returns and better profits. Encouraged by the success, more farmers joined hands with SumArth. In 2023, Prabhat set up Gaya’s largest crop processing unit, with the capacity to handle 10,000 kg of produce every day. This allowed farmers to increase the shelf life of perishable crops from just 24 hours to up to 24 months, reducing wastage and ensuring better prices, reports The Better India.
End-to-end support for farmers
Prabhat’s approach goes beyond just introducing crops. SumArth provides complete solutions, helping farmers procure quality inputs, training them in modern methods, teaching them about seed treatment to prevent diseases, and creating a marketplace to sell their produce. What started with just 10 farmers has now grown into a network of 25,000 farmers across 500 villages in six districts namely, Gaya, Jehanabad, Arwal, Aurangabad, Nawada and Nalanda. Collectively, these farmers have earned Rs 100 crore in the past 10 years, including Rs 23 crore in the last financial year alone.
While proud of the progress, Prabhat says his mission is far from complete. “It is satisfying to see farmers double their income, but I want to help them earn five times more. We can do this by processing crops into value-added products, just like in progressive states such as Maharashtra,” he says.
From being told never to become a farmer to helping thousands of farmers rewrite their future, Prabhat Kumar’s journey is a story of resilience, vision, and hope. His work is not just transforming agriculture in Bihar but also changing the way people perceive the state.