A majority of farmers who had grown guava in the district in recent months were happy as they had been getting a good price for the produce, said Collector K. Veera Raghava Rao here on Wednesday.
Speaking to reporters after visiting the State Horticulture Farm at Poonchuthi near here, he said till a year ago, farmers got a meagre price of ₹5 or ₹10 per kg of guava.
Today, they were getting anywhere around ₹40 to ₹50 per kg. The reason, he pointed out, was that the State government promoted guava cultivation in a big way and farmers utilised the sops offered by National Horticulture Mission.
Every year, the cultivable area for guava was increasing, he said and added that more and more farmers who had tried and failed with crops like paddy and plantain might switch over to growing guava and mangoes.
When many farmers faced problems like getting labour for farming operations and with water for irrigation turning out to be a major issue, they shifted to alternative crops like guava as it would not only require less water, but would also render a high yield and price.
Thus, with shrinking cultivable area, raising horticultural crops aided with technology appeared to be catching up among small and marginal farmers, said Deputy Director (Horticulture) G.O. Boopathi.
Earlier, the space between mango saplings and rows would be 10 metres. But today, with ultra high density planting method, it was enough to leave 2x3 metre space between each sapling and rows.
Better yield
Thus, each hectare of land could accommodate 2,000 trees, which meant, in about four years, a farmer could reap good yield, which was not the case earlier as ryots had to wait for seven to eight years, Mr. Boopathi said and added that the yield too was three times higher than the normal variety.
Well-suited for district
Farmers at the State Horticulture Farm said that guava was recommended even for diabetics and among the fruits, it was liked by all, irrespective of age. Almost in all the blocks in the district, guava could be raised with little water and the soil was well-suited for it.
Assistant Directors (Horticulture) Kalaiselvan and A. Selvaraj said that the farm was established in 2005 with the efforts from District Rural Development Agency.
Spread over 5,000 hectares, it has four motors, and 95% of the plants raised here were given to farmers with subsidy offered by National Horticulture Mission.
At a time, when guava saplings were sold at ₹100 to ₹125 in the private market, the government farm sold genetically enhanced plants at ₹25 each, the officials said.
