A farmville that’s for real

There are examples of farmers across the state opting for innovative ways to increase crop yield or taking to sustainable, organic ways to raise farms. We compile the best agriculture stories of the year.

It is a crop that never fails the farmer. Jackfruit is drought-resistant and the incidence of pest is negligible. Formation of a Jackfruit Growers’ Association and better marketing opportunities have helped. A mango orchard yields a good harvest only if you spray insecticides twice a year. But jackfruit farms don’t require that kind of attention. Once the jackfruit saplings cross five years, it is a zero-attention crop,” says farmer R S Nagaraj of Toobugere in Doddaballapur taluk. He realised the potential of jackfruit almost a decade ago. He has planted jackfruit as a single crop on his 75 cents of land. The trees have started yielding fruit over the last three years.

Last year, he made a profit of Rs 15,000 by selling fruits to local middlemen. A member of Toobugere Jackfruit Growers’ Association (TJGA), probably the only such organisation in the country, he hopes to market fruits through the association.
Nagaraj is convinced about jackfruit cultivation enough to coax his elder brother Prakash to plant jackfruit trees on his 12-acre coconut farm. “However severe the drought is, jackfruit never fails a farmer. The barest minimum that a tree would fetch is Rs 500,” he points out.

Toobugere Jackfruit Growers’ Association Secretary M G Ravikumkar makes a profit of Rs 3,500 to 4,000 a year from an old jackfruit tree his grandmother planted many years ago. He sells the fruitlets at local santhes (fairs). His son Harshithkumar is a ninth standard student. From the last ten years, Ravikumar is investing all the money from jackfruit cultivation in an insurance scheme for his son.

Ravi advises fellow-farmers to plant at least 10 jackfruit saplings to border his fields. The trees will start to yield fruit from the seventh year onwards. Over the last two-three years, at least 30-40 small farmers at Toobugere have planted jackfruit trees in their 10-15 gunta land. The Association produces thousands of jackfruit plants every year and the demand is increasing. Rural Bio Resource Complex (RBRC), a five-year project under Central Bio-technology Department, taken up by the University of Agriculture Sciences (UAS), Bangalore is coming to an end this year. It covers 8,340 families of 75 villages in five panchayats of Toobugere hobli in Bangalore Rural district. Slowly, farmers are realising the commercial importance of jackfruit. It has a very high timber value too. If farmers are able to take their fruit to consumers, there is always a good demand and higher price waiting. This is where the role of the Association comes in.

Shree Padre

Courtesy Deccan Herald