Crop diversification is a good idea for earning more profits
Bengaluru: The ongoing farmers’ agitation demanding the scrapping of the new farm laws is seeing strikes and roadblocks.
They are also apprehensive that MSP will be compromised with and APMC will be dismantled.
Apart from these farm laws, farmers are also not confident of shifting crops – from paddy to wheat.
But as per an India Today report, many farmers change to strawberry and pepper farming.
The website also quotes a farmer, 52-year-old Lakkha Singh who grows bell pepper. It adds that he has made Rs 60,000 by selling it directly to a buyer, thereby earning Rs 20,000 more.
With no mandi and middlemen involved, he finds pepper crop a viable alternative to wheat and has leased out another two acres of land to sow double the saplings this season than what he did last season, it notes.
"We are farmers, no challenge is big for us, we faced high concrete walls, water cannons and tear gas shells, but stood our ground strong to show solidarity with fellow farmers who are fighting against the Centre against the farm laws. Two years ago, I told myself enough of running around in mandis and started pepper cultivation instead of wheat on my four acres of land. I earned a good profit, all my pepper was sold at my doorstep, and the buyer made a quick payment since there is no middleman involved,” as quoted by India Today.
Crop diversification is another solution to earn more profits. Apart from strawberry and pepper, dragon fruit and fig too are becoming a hit.
A dragon fruit tree gives 40 quintals of yield per acre every year which sells at a price of Rs 200 per kilo and so a farmer can earn up to Rs 8 lakh per year per acre, the website notes.
Many farmers want to relinquish growing wheat and paddy.
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