: Meet the ‘Farm Influencers’ Whose YouTube Videos Are Helping Millions of Farmers #IndiaNEWS #Farming They are young, enthusiastic, talkative, and passionately in love with the internet, smartphones,

Meet the ‘Farm Influencers’ Whose YouTube Videos Are Helping Millions of Farmers #IndiaNEWS #Farming
They are young, enthusiastic, talkative, and passionately in love with the internet, smartphones, drones, agricultural farming and ‘jugaad’. They are the new sensation on YouTube, having amassed 182 lakh (18. 2 million) subscribers for their channel Indian Farmer, within three years since June 2018. The duo in their mid-20s belong to a very small town called Vita, in Sangli districts of Maharashtra, where till a couple of years ago the Wifi connection was a real problem.
“We have 7 lakh followers on Facebook plus close to 100,000 followers on Instagram too,??? says 26-year-old Akash Jadhav.
Very chirpy and with a broad smile, his friend and the face of their channel, 27-year-old Santhosh Jadhav enthusiastically adds, “So far we have 1,000 plus videos of four to 30-minutes-long, plus many 20 second TikTok videos in our library. ???
They are neither boasting nor arrogant when they state these numbers. “We still have miles to go. India has some 70-80 crore farmers and we have barely reached less than two crores,??? says Akash.
So what are their videos, you might ask?
A drone camera shoots a picture on a farm.
They influence farmers about new techniques of farming, irrigation, controlling weeds, using pesticides, the right way to use fertilisers, procurement of good quality seeds, rotation of crops, the right way to market and other points that matter to farmers.
There is no age bar for their subscribers. From 18-year-olds to those over 50, farmers from all over India log on to Indian Farmer, for new feed on every Tuesday and Friday at 6 pm. The reason for their popularity is Santosh’s easy way of talking with that broad smile in simple Hindi, which makes every viewer feel he is talking to them. No sermons, no patronising voice, just simple talk about farming.
Another plus point is that they are not armchair talkers nor studio speakers. They shoot on real farms, many a time on the 11-acre ancestral farmland of Santosh, where they grow sugarcane, mango, pomegranate and vegetables like capsicum, tomato, etc. They have first-hand knowledge of what ails the farming community. So, it becomes easier for them to show and talk about problems, making the programme interesting for their viewers to understand and learn.
Akash does a lot of research online. He calls himself a Google prodigy and playfully says, “If ever I write a book, the dedication page will read, ‘Dedicated to Google!’’’. He’s the one who finds out farmers who are using new or different techniques on their farm, reaches out to them and after getting an appointment, travels to the farm to shoot.
The duo travel all over the country.

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