Dear farmers and farming enthusiasists
well how to start?
only for low budget small farmers
let me state my own experiance as a small farmer
BACKGROUND: I am a medical professional with little knowledge of farming, as ameteur farmer.I as a kid used to grow lot of plants and vegetables in our garden i have grown tomato,potato,groundnut,maize brinjal,carrots,raddish,coriander chilli etc with outstanding results
we rarely used to purchase vegetables and also we used to distribute to our neighbours.My heart always used to pound for agriculture
when i grew up and had little money i purchased 5 acres of land -dry barren land relatively cheap in that region
in 2010 farmland is in hassan district and i work in kerala
farm has borewell and sprinklers and thanks to government electricity for pumps is only 4 hrs /day and that too very low voltage
problems I faced
success stories:first and foremost problem in success stories especially over internet. we will read them and start calculating and we even think giving some 20-30% buffer of loss on ground we fail miserably
because they publish and we read success stories which very few educated ppl achieve what they dont publish and we dont read is lots of failure stories
never calculate anything on success stories
labour problem:because of urbanization and lot of government schemes for labourers its very difficult to find labourers
and its even difficult now because of 1 rupee rice .they dont have to work they get 30 kg rice for 30 rs ( also heavily subsidized other products like oil sugar dals etc) so they dont have to starve and they dont have to work. One or two days work a month will get 600-800 rs which is more than sufficient to lead a sedentary life.local laborers were demanding too much
misguiding farmers dont ever be in an illusion of thinking that all farmers as "poor, illiterate innocent and honest" true genuine honest farmers are difficult to find these days.Few will misguide u like u should do like that, like this and all sorts of c**p
TRUSTu need some trusted worker to look after ur farm
my bitter experience: we had one family very young and energetic initially hailing from north india, both husband and wife were working for 5000/month in bangalore (in that 5000 rs they had to pay rent ,purchase groceries etc etc)
we were paying them 10000/month and had provided a house(in farmland) with phone ,LCD TV and DTH ,groceries. Actual work wass to work in small dairy unit whaich i wanted to start, water 34 (thirty four) coconut plants and few( about 15) fruits plants and watering maize crop (sprinkler system ) they had to turn the valve and switch on the motor, that too we had asked them to do alternatively . For all other works (sowing seeds, fertilizers spraying insecticides) additional laborers were used:D Initially they worked well started growing vegetables (half of which they themselves used to consume ) plants started growing well but after about 2 months plants stopped/retarded growing. when we see all the plants had been watered we were wondering why plants are not growing .Even neighbours used to say he works hard. later we came to know that women never used to work and the guy used to water 5-6 coconut plants with a bucket of water and 20- 30 vegetable plants with a bucket of water and divert water to neighbours farm for few favours and also used to sell seeds.i had already spent so much on them but they were cheating me. One fine day they asked for advance and i gave, they left and didnt return similar thing happend two more times
SO I BECAME A JOKE in that region
ECONOMICS why white collared farmers fail??
farmers themselves work so savings on labour itself will be huge.quality of work is also great when you yourself work
for example growing ragi,maize,its very labor intensive u will lose more than ur investment
plant diseases can wipe out ur prospects If not loss ur gain will be equivalent to "KAPIL SIBAL’s 2G loss i;e 0 "
SUBSIDIESforget subsidies most of the time u will never get it
AM I DISCOURAGING ANYBODY? AM I PESSIMISTIC?
a big hell no
i want ppl to be careful
is there profit?
yes there is
how?
dedicate urself 24/7
you have to do things by urself
never calculate things on “SUCCESS STORIES” things like that rarely happen
carefully analyze local markets
carefully select local crops and take advice from trustable local farmers
prefer machines over men
now i have decided to do it myself and whether success or failure i will let you guys know
JAI HIND