Agri-Entrepreneurship
It is nice that being in IT you wish to enter agriculture. But think twice. There is ample scope, but with pitfalls. Today, we who are inagriculture are facing severe labour scarcity. If we cultivate vegitables or cut flowers near Bangalore, there is very good scope. However, I do not think we would be able to get required number of workers. One of my friends has returned from Mumbai and has purchased 150-00-00 Acres of agri land. he started cultivation of Papaya. Unfortunately he lost the entire crop due to viral attack. Today, they do not have enough labour force to manage the orchard. We too have 50-00-00 acres of Areca Garden. two years back we used to get 100 - 150 workers easily. Today, the number has declined to 35-40. With the declining labour force, it is difficult to get the necessary works accomplished at appropriate time. However, if you can overcome this hurdle, you can reap good monetary benefits. eg. This year the price of Banana (Yelakki) crossed Rs.27/= per Kg. The gross income from 1200 plants in a acre amounted to Rs.3.00 lakhs. The total expenditure of the same would be around Rs.50000/= to Rs.60000/=. Thus there was a surplus of around Rs.2.50 lakhs per acre. However, this will not be the case always. So, study the pros and cons before leaping into agriculture.
Narayana Gadikai
