Advancement of agricultural research has increased farm yields but the lower returns for produce and rising costs of chemical and other inputs have made agriculture unprofitable.
Advancement of agricultural research has increased farm yields but the lower returns for produce and rising costs of chemical and other inputs have made agriculture unprofitable. Farmers like Manoj Bhatia sought new ways to increase their farm incomes and inspire other to follow his path of tech agriculture.
Manoj left his growing corporate career as an operations manager, Punjab at Godrej Adhar, an agri retail division of Godrej Agrovet limited & went back to his farming roots. His last drawn salary was 8 lacs per annum
even though Manoj had a Post-graduation in Vegetable Sciences, he never took farming to start with. Only after few of his close friends informed him about the benefits of modern farming, in the year 2010 he was inspired to take up farming on a 2.5 acres land out of the 8 acres owned near Karnal.
Baby step to Giant step in the process of farming
He started with open field seasonal crop on 2 acres of capsicum and ½ acres of water melon under drip irrigation with an investment of Rs. 1.5 lakh. This year he could not get profits from his failed crop of capsicum but he recovered Rs 1.7 lakh in a small area of ½ acres from watermelon. This inspired him to increase the cultivated area to 4.5 acres next year.
He found climatic variations the biggest obstacles on the way to his success. In order to reduce the dependence on nature he went high tech and is using protected farming technologies like polyhouse and net house. At present Manoj has 32 acres vegetable farming in open field and 3 acres of protected structures where he grows 5 to 6 varieties of vegetables like tomatoes, egg plants, bitter gourd, Bottle Gourd, Sponge Gourd, Cucumber and Cauliflower depending on the season and market demand.
Manoj has implemented following technologies at his farm for last 6 years:
Mulching:
Manoj used mulching and drip irrigation across his entire farm. It was used to improve the conserver moisture, reduce weeds, save labor, better root system
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