Till a year ago farmer P. Chennaiah was growing cotton and maize and used to make a profit of about ₹ 60,000 at the end of the year on his one-acre farm.
However, he shifted to horticulture and started growing vegetables like cucumber, bottle gourd, etc. He has also mulched the farm so that moisture could be retained and growth of weeds could be prevented. Mr. Chennaiah also adopted drip irrigation optimising water use. All this has paid off now and the farmer claims he is netting ₹ 1 lakh per half acre as the crop yield is twice a week.He supplies the vegetables to markets at Erragadda and Bowenpally in the State capital.
Official support
Kishtala Swami is another farmer from the same village who has taken up cultivation in his one-and-a-half acre with only one borewell. He has been using waste decomposer , mixing it with water and supplying it to the farm through drip system. Decomposer acts as plant protection agent and protects soil health.
He has also been supplying fertilizer through the same drip system so that not a drop goes waste. The Horticulture Department has supplied the required drip, pumping and other systems on 90% subsidy for many of these farmers.
Kasa Satyam of the same village has been cultivating tomatoes in pandal system and ensuring that not a single tomato rots as they do not touch the ground. He is the only farmer in the village using the pandal system. To demonstrate the advantage of pandal cultivation of tomatoes, he has cultivated the same crop in a quarter acre, in which part of the yield is on the ground and some of the tomatoes have rotted.
There are about 840 acres of farm lands in the village, of which 360 acres are being cultivated under the drip system.
“Earlier we used to run all the six borewells to meet the water requirement in two- and-a-half acres and still it was not sufficient. But after shifting to drip system we are able to cultivate all the two-and-a-half acres area operating just one borewell,” Mr. Swami told The Hindu .
The villagers say a system needs to be developed wherein traders can come and purchase the produce at the farm gates in the village so that they need not transport the vegetables to the faraway markets, thus saving on money and avoiding wastage.
