Bengaluru: Harish Chandra Singh is a retired colonel. He retired in 2015. Immediately he took up a job but he was not happy with himself. He wanted to do something different.

That is when he took up farming. He bought a piece of land in Barabanki. Since then, he has been cultivating dragon fruit, apple plum, apple, and black wheat. 

Harish says, “My father was a teacher, but he used to do farming and that too with new technology. As a child, I had learned to plant and grafting with him as a child. During my stay in the army, I used to do planting. Therefore, farming was the field of my interest. Most of the people on my side used to do traditional farming, but my focus was on the super marketed plant. In 2018 I started farming with Dragon Fruit and Apple Plum. Planting 2 thousand dragon fruit and 500 red and green apple plum saplings on three acres of land. I brought this plant from Nagpur and Hyderabad. A few days later, apple, peach and mango were also planted”.

Harish Chandra says he can earn a bumper from dragon fruit cultivation. However, he adds that the cultivation is a lot expensive. 

The cost of its seeds is also high and the maintenance is well spent. Also, there is a problem in its marketing in small cities. 

However, with marketing network being good, having access to big cities and supermarkets, then its cultivation can prove beneficial for him. The price of a fruit in the market ranges from rupees 100 to 300. Its cultivation on an acre of land can produce 10 tonnes of fruit annually. With this, it can earn Rs 8-10 lakh per ton.