Farmer earns on par with IT professional by cultivating leafy vegetables
K M Dayashankar
Farmer cultivated leafy vegetables on just three acres of land and secured regularly weekly income
KARIMNAGAR: An innovative and progressive farmer is earning his monthly income on par with any IT professionals by cultivating leafy vegetables on his three acres of land in Rampur village of Huzurabad mandal in Karimnagar district.
A farmer couple Vanam Tirupathi and Mamatha have cultivated leafy vegetables such as spinach, ‘thota kura’, ‘gangavaili kura’ and brinjal and earned annual revenue of Rs 14.04 lakhs. After deducting his investments of Rs 2.26 lakhs for cultivating the crops, he earned Rs 11.77 lakhs per annum.
Earlier, the farmer cultivated the paddy on his three acres of land. But he failed to reap a good harvest and secure revenue. Inspired by Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao’s call for crop diversification, he shifted to cultivating vegetables. Accordingly, he had cultivated spinach in 20 guntas of land, thota kura in 20 guntas, ganga vaili kura in 20 guntas of land and cultivated brinjal in 1.2 guntas of land.
He adopted organic methods of cultivation by using natural manure, neem oil etc. To protect the crop from pest attacks, he used necessary pesticides. Surprisingly, within two months of planting the leafy vegetables, he started reaping riches because of the demand for the vegetables in the market.
He harvested a record 160 quintals of thota kuta, 40 quintals of spinach and 50 quintals of ganga vaili kura. Besides, he also reaped 5767 quintals of brinjals in six months period. He said that he was getting weekly income by working in the fields and annually when compared his income was equivalent to the an IT professional. He appealed to the farmers to diversify the crops to earn more profits instead of relying solely on paddy cultivation.
ATMA (Agriculture Technology and Management Agency) Project Director N Priyadarshini said that the farmer was reaping riches in just three acres of land and earning on par with IT professionals. She appealed to the farmers to diversify the cropping pattern and earn more profits.
