From Govardhan to Sikandra Rao: the 2019 camps

The 2019–20 drive, the largest the Foundation has run, spread across Bareilly, Mathura, Sonbhadra, Kasganj and Sikandra Rao with ONGC's support. Two of its camps were reported at length in the local press.

At Govardhan, in the courtyard of Geeta Bhavan at the foot of Giriraj, fruit saplings were given free to the farmers of the surrounding villages one Sunday in September 2019. Shri Jitendra Sharma of the Akshaya Patra Foundation, the main speaker, called the programme a unique gift to the Braj region and urged the farmers to recharge their ponds and wells with rainwater and to move towards chemical-free farming. Shri Hari Das Maharaj told them to treat the saplings as their children: "they may not serve you when they grow up, but these trees will serve you selflessly for ever." The Foundation's Virendra and Nitesh Pal ran the camp.

At Sumerpur in Sikandra Rao, the District Magistrate Dr Ramashankar Maurya distributed 7,500 saplings of mango, pomegranate, ber, bel and lemon to farmers from 58 villages, at a camp held with the Shri Krishna Lal Sharma Charitable Trust. "Trees are man's true friends," he told them, "and their felling should stop completely." The trust's Uma Shankar Sharma recalled that 5,000 saplings had been distributed with the Foundation's help the year before.