ANANTAPUR : Devastated by his father’s death during the pandemic, 32-year-old Bhuwaneswar Chakravarthi wanted to sell the agriculture fields in his ancestral village in Anantapur. Little did he know there would be a dramatic turn of events and he would have to take up farming on the 16-acre of land. Switching career was replete with challenges. But for Bhubaneswar, he didn’t want to live with the regret of not giving farming a shot. As the saying goes, fortune favours the brave, there was no looking back for the 32-year-old. From drawing a meagre five-digit salary as a techie in Bengaluru, he now earns in lakhs.
Bhuwaneswar, who hails from Tagguparthi village in Beluguppa Mandal in Anantapur, started off with traditional farming, which was an arduous task. Traditional crops barely helped him reap any profit. Incurring huge losses, Bhuwaneswar decided to explore alternative options to make farming, a profitable venture. The techie-turned-farmer began his online hunt for an ideal crop that suited black soil. This is when he stumbled upon the bhagwa variety of pomegranate. He brought the saplings from Maharashtra and planted them in six-acre of land in 2020. Later, he grew pomegranate in the entire orchard in a phased manner.
In a period of 11 months, Bhuwaneswar achieved 26 tonne of yield in the first cycle of the harvest and bagged Rs 18 lakh by selling pomegranates for Rs 60,000-Rs 70,000 per tonne. Leaving Rs 4 lakh input costs, he accrued Rs 14 lakh profit from the sale of first cycle of produce.
Adapting to the latest technology not just reduced the input costs but helped the 32-year-old boost his yield to a large extent. In 2022, Bhuwaneswar developed an Android mobile application and sold his produce to those residing in various gated communities in Bengaluru at a cost of Rs 100 per kilo. He sold nearly 16 tonne of the fruit through the mobile app, thus eliminating the intervention by middlemen, & increasing his profit to Rs 16 lakh. He delivered the fruit to customers in Bengaluru through RTC cargo services. He also employed around 10 workers at his farm.
He further installed solar panels in his field generating solar energy required to drip irrigate the farm. He set up solar lights to trap fruit flies from damaging the crop and harvested honey bees within the field for flower fertilisation. He also set up the indigenous FASAL instrument costing Rs 50,000 having 13 sensors with satellite connection in order to learn about rainfall, ground moisture and pests.
To reduce the input costs, he purchased fertilisers and pesticides in bulk from dealers. He also started a YouTube channel to teach and train farmers to earn profits through pomegranate cultivation.
Bhuwaneswar’s mother Nirmala says, “Exploring the new technological methods introduced by her son helped them to get harvest round-the-year and reduce the arduous work of workers.”
Meanwhile, he urged the State government to eliminate the middlemen and establish food processing units with farm unions to benefit farmers. He says the companies use middlemen to procure the produce from farmers neither benefitting the consumer nor the farmer.