There was no turning back for Keshwan Nair when he departed from his job as a mechanic and took up farming.
The 63-year-old was born in Tavua, but his family moved to Lautoka in 1989 and in 1994, he left his job as a mechanic at a bus company and started a new job he did not know much about.
He moved to Lomaivuna when he was 39, where his older brother was living as a farmer and learned to till the land.
He decided not to go back to Lautoka when he got his first harvest and compared what he could make working as a mechanic every week with what he had earned from the farm.
Grasping all the farming knowledge he could get, he purchased an 11-and-a-half acre land at Lomaivuna Sector 4 in 2014.
He planted dalo, cassava and ginger on nine acres and secured his market. In 2016, Keshwan was assisted by the Ministry of Agriculture on land preparation.
It cleared two acres of his land for ginger farming. He has never looked back since.
“I earned $180 a week as a mechanic and had to report every day by waking up early. However, when I started working on the farm, I was amazed to see how something that people take for granted could generate a lot of income,” he said.
Not all days are a bed of roses. His family has experienced the highs and lows of farming with the biggest blow being the devastation caused by TC Winston.
“They were like my children. I have always treated them with care as they are living things too and when I saw how bad the cyclone devastated them, I was really sad,” said Keshwan.
Keshwan and his family did not let their dreams and hard work die with TC Winston. Instead, they worked and rebuilt their farm back to its former glory.
Working alongside Keshwan is his 32-year-old son, Rajiv Nair, who has found his niche in farming.
Rajiv studied and worked as an electrician, but returned to farming in 2012. Rajiv appreciates being on the farm.
Once he was always skipping school just to help his father.
“I did not regret the decision I made because I have seen its benefits. Aside from being a helper to my father, I am working on another 10 acres of land my father recently bought.”
Among the challenges the duo face are labour, the rise in chemical prices and the problems of the ginger market.
The sacrifice Keshwan made when he first changed from being a mechanic to working as a farmer is now paying off and his son is not too far away behind him.
In fact, Rajiv is hot on his heels.
“If you have the land make use of it as we are going through a hard time. You can get a lot from farming… you will find gold in the land. Turn to agriculture and benefit from it just like how we did,” said Keshwan.
