Owning 0.5 acre and remaining poor at 35 years is your fault - Biju Patnaik

Read an article about a farmer called Shanmughan, who was inspired by Biju Patnaik's statement  "Owning 0.5 acre and remaining poor at 35 years is your fault". He is from Calicut and is around 70 years old now. In 1982, he had a shop in Calicut and it was looted twice and he went to Bombay to go to gulf country for a job. But he lost his passport and money and he was sitting near a lawn at Gate of India and came across a piece of paper in which this famous sentence of Biju Patnaik was written.

It influenced him so much since he was 35 years then and owned 0.505 acre of land. He came back to his native place and decided to give a try with agriculture. Right now he is around 70 and makes a decent living from income from farming, but his life style is very simple. He has wife and three daughters and has been living from income from farming. His monthly requirement of money is about 1000 rupees unless there is some medical expenses. He has around 40 coconut trees and harvests about 1300 coconuts. Vegetables are cultivated in between coconuts and has 10 nugmeg trees which gives around 35000 rupees per year.

Initially he needed help to complete the work, but after 3-4 years into agriculture, he is able to complete all the work by himself, but he does it step by step.

He says "God used to give me just enough for each day. With the kind of money the youngsters spend today for buying chappals, we can meet one month's expenses. Without much demands, living with income from farming, we are able to living happily".