MEDAK : Farmers from Medak district are cultivating sweet corn and earning good profits. In the time when several farmers cultivate the same crop over years, reducing the yields and running into losses, some farmers from the district are cultivating sweet corn for the last 12 years and earning profits.
Farmers cultivating sweet corn said that they haven’t faced much difficulty in cultivating the same crop for a long time period. Almost 12 years ago, one of the farmers of Ghanapur village of Toopran mandal in Medak district started cultivating sweet corn and today hundreds of farmers are cultivating the crop and have become a role model for other villages.
Several high-end hotels and restaurants as well as eateries in the cities include sweet corn in their menu. The product can also found on the shelves of several malls and supermarkets dotting the mega cities. Bontappa was the first farmer from the village to cultivate sweet corn and later most of the farmers followed him. The crop cultivated in the village is supplied to several markets in Hyderabad. Dasu, a farmer from the village, told Express that a sweet corn seed packet comes for `2,500 and can be sown in half an acre of land. He added that the crop is ready within 75 days.
This is being cited as a major reason why most of the farmers from the village show interest in sweet corn cultivation. Several farmers of the village also cultivate vegetables after the yield of sweet corn and earn more profit.Dasu told that farmers from Veluru and Ananthagiripally of Siddipet as well as some from Gajwel have also started cultivating sweet corn. He said: “Cultivation is quite similar to gambling, when there is loss, one should not worry.” He added that second time they should try hard and success will eventually follow.
Sweet corn sowed on 60 pc land
The population of the Ghanapur village is around 2,500 and the village has almost 200 acres of cultivable land, of which paddy and vegetables are cultivated in around 40 per cent of the lands. The remaining 60 per cent land is used for cultivation of sweet corn