How a Gujarat Journalist Taught Farming to 20000 Kids Across 5 Schools

It was an unseasonal spell of October rain that flattened a cabbage crop in a Vadodara school. A group of children stood speechless before it, then tears rolled down their cheeks. Weeks of careful tending had been washed away in a single downpour.

For Hitarth Pandya, who had guided them through the process, this was proof that his experiment was working. “They didn’t need a lesson on empathy or food waste,” he says. “They had experienced it first-hand.”

That moment captures the essence of Pandya’s Kids for the Environment Development Initiative (KEDI). What began in 2016 as a semester-long farming module in one school has now reached nearly 20,000 children across five schools in Vadodara. Two of these schools have even adopted it as part of their eco club activities.

Why a journalist left the newsroom to nurture young environmentalists

Pandya didn’t start as a teacher. For nearly a decade, he worked in the newsrooms of The Times of India, The Indian Express and Divya Bhaskar. His bylines told stories of forests cleared for highways, migratory birds dying in wetlands, leopards straying into villages, and farmers battling distress.

But one question lingered: “What changed after these stories were published?”

Convinced that words alone weren’t enough, he left journalism and corporate communications. His new audience would be children.

“The turning point was in 2012,” Hitarth recalls. “I questioned: Did the stories matter? Did they create any impact? By August 2015, I quit journalism in search of a more meaningful and impactful endeavour.”

Why farming?

“I worked on the idea of immediate gratification,” he explains. “Children were growing up watching Cartoon Network. Why would they sit through a 30-minute lecture? Farming shows the growth of plants, providing dopamine to hook their attention.”

Learning through seeds, skits and stories instead of tests

His first opportunity came at St Kabir School in 2016. Instead of learning farming from textbooks, students got their hands dirty in the soil.

The learning grew step by step — Class 4 students began with farming, followed by insects in Class 5, then birds, trees, and water. One layer of the ecosystem naturally led into the next.

“The focus was always on learning, not assessment,” says Hitarth. “Until 2023, there were no paper-pencil tests at St Kabir. Children showcased learning by drawing, skits, songs, and even documentaries. A workshop on birds once inspired students to make a film on how sparrows could return.”

Students agree. “By being in the field, we understand the entire ecosystem and how these are interrelated. I explain this to my cousins and friends,” says Nandani, who has studied with Hitarth for five years.

At Tejas Vidyalaya, principal Lina Shajy puts it simply: “One 70-minute session with Hitarth equals 100 hours of textbook learning.”

From classrooms to mandis: Teaching children the economics of farming

KEDI also introduces children to the economics of farming. The KEDI Haat is a vegetable market run entirely by students.

Teams form naturally — one haggles like a vendor, another tallies accounts, a third shouts out prices. Students track mandi rates, compare them with supermarket prices, and then sell their own produce.

“Students quickly learn the difference between the cost of vegetables they buy and the profit a farmer actually earns,” Hitarth explains.

Each year at the KEDI Mela, children sell around 2,000 kg of terrace-grown greens and 3,500 kg of soil-grown vegetables. Teachers say the lessons show in small actions too — students pouring leftover water from their bottles at the roots of school trees.

The Harvest Festival became another way to measure outcomes. Vegetables grown were cooked collectively in a Sanjha Chullha (community kitchen), with each child bringing chapatis from home.

“Students ate all vegetables, whether they liked them or not,” recalls principal Swati Khot. “Even urban parents living in apartments began experimenting with balcony kitchen gardens.”

Encouraged by such visible impact, more schools began joining the initiative. From one school, KEDI has now spread to Tejas Vidyalaya, D R Amin, and OneWorld School. Where space or schedules were tight, Hitarth innovated.

From Sonam Wangchuk’s advice to wider recognition

In April 2019, education reformer Sonam Wangchuk suggested tweaking the model without losing its core. Hitarth responded with a three-month, one-and-a-half-hour module.

When schools lacked farming fields, he used resources developed at home to demonstrate techniques. OneWorld School adopted this renewed model in 2024.

The success of this adaptable approach soon drew wider attention. His expertise has since been recognised by Gujarat’s Department of Science & Technology, Rajasthan’s SCERT, and DIET Vadodara, which invited him to train teachers.

A passion project that grew into a larger vision for education

From reporting on environmental decline to teaching children to protect the environment, Pandya’s shift has been clear. The cabbage crop may have been lost to rain, but for him, the lesson was a gain: children once detached from farming now knew what it meant to nurture — and lose — a harvest.

“I implemented KEDI without any personal financial gains for the first few years — it was pure passion,” he says. “Now, I see the bigger picture. My vision is to focus on training teachers and communities, while also teaching children multiple subjects in innovative ways.

“The real challenge is breaking silos: a math teacher rarely sees the art in math, or the math in art. That has to change.”

Students echo his belief. Swara, who has studied with Hitarth for two years, says, “Amir ho ya gareeb, khana to sabhi khet se hi khate hai (Rich or poor, everyone eats food that comes from the farm).”

Co-written by Vandana Talegaonkar, associate professor, and Darshan Desai, professor-of-practice at Navrachana University and founder-editor at Development News Network (DNN).

Edited by Pranita Bhat