Mirza - Field Visit

After almost spending the entire days and nights in office, I was getting a bit claustrophobic. I was in a city, where I didn't know anyone, barely spoke to anyone for more than 10 minutes, didn't know the language, completely new food with no salt, spice or curd and people who look curiously at you as if you are an alien landed from another planet. The need to go out exploring was getting the better of me and I quickly made plans for the weekend. But from the short duration of the stay here, all I've learned is Assam is full of surprises!

It was time to go meet my mentor for this internship and he lived in a town called Mirza, around 150 kilometers away. The executives in the office invited me to join them on this field visit so that I can meet him as well. It was a visit from the people in the other districts to learn about the techniques of Pig rearing that happens in the district my mentor lives in. So it was all set! We were to travel halfway across Assam to learn about pigs!

The journey was just as I imagined. Pristine! Bongaigaon and its surroundings are covered with mountains and the farmers have not left an inch of the ground to be kept away from farming. All throughout there is greenery and mountains. We even had to travel through ghat roads in between mountains and I was having the time of my life in Assam sitting in the front seat of the car, enjoying my view.

When we reached the district, it was covered completely with Tea estate. My mentor Parag da and his executives took a training session on Pig rearing. It was the first time I had to sit through a session in a language that is completely unknown to me! Yes the training session was in Assamese. Fortunately, one of the executives taking notes was taking it in English and I peeked in his notes to see what it was all about. Session went on from selecting piglets, to building their homes, vaccinating them, feeding cycles and their hygiene. It was interesting to see the scientific part of farming as all the facts were taken from wikihow.

The pig house

After the training session, we went to the field to study the housing models of the pigs. We went deep interior of Assam into rural villages to see the villagers who had implemented the models. It was basically a Pig shelter with 3 stages for the Pig’s life to prevent it from sun burn or eating shit it is not supposed to. The executives from other villages were a bit skeptical of this shelter as they exclaimed, “people don’t have money to build their own houses. I doubt they will build it for the pigs.” Anyways, after studying the model in 5-6 households and their experiences, it was time to go back.

To take something out of all this, I can proudly add “Training of Pig rearing” in my resume. I bet none of them in B-school will have that! Competitive advantage did you say?

The best part of this whole exercise was that I had moved ahead on understanding how Sesta works. They are not experts in Pig farmers or any other farming. They were professionals who looked to study the best techniques used in farming in the world and look to implement it in the villages they look after. They are motivated and directed towards development of the livelihoods of the farmers and see that their job doesn’t just end after creating awareness.