*Dr. Deepa Lal, SMS, Horticulture, Jayashree Khobragade, Sr. Research Fellow and Amol Pandharji Raghorte, YP, Krishi Vigyan Kendra, Central Institute for Cotton Research, Nagpur.
04 October 2023, New Delhi: Gondkhairi is a small village in Umred taluka of Nagpur district of Maharashtra. The majority of the people in this village have been doing agriculture as a traditional occupation for livelihood. Sarveshwar Malve, a progressive farmer of this village, has a 5-acre farm near this village. Since he has the facility of irrigation, he has planted oranges on one acre of his 5-acre farm and sugarcane on one acre. They get about 40,000 sugarcane stalks per acre. Once the sugarcane is ready, they sell it to the factories and get an income of Rs. 2 lakh in a year. He has planted green chilies on two acres of land and gets 200 quintals of green chilies. They sell the chilies at Rs. 30 per kg and earn Rs 6 lakhs.
While doing traditional farming business, one day experts of the ARYA project of Krishi Vigyan Kendra, Central Cotton Research Institute visited the farm of Sarveshwar Malve and advised him to start Raswanti by installing sugarcane Juicer to get more income. After that, the experts of KVK, Central Cotton Research Institute provided Sarveshwar Malve fully automatic sugarcane juicer machine and gave him training for operating it under the guidance of Dr. Y.G. Prasad, Director, CICR Nagpur under the ARYA project. Motivated and excited, he started Raswanti on the Gondbori Bhiwapur highway.
Sarveshwar used to sell 100 percent of his sugarcane to the factories, earning him an income of one lakh rupees in a year. The experts of KVK, and CICR conducted a study and observed that the price of one cane is 7 to 8 rupees. If the juice is extracted from it, five glasses of juice are obtained from one cane and sold at the rate of Rs. 20 per glass, one can earn Rs. 100 from the juice of one cane. The experts brought this to Malve’s attention. Impressed by that, Malve started the business of extracting sugarcane juice on the Gondbori Bhiwapur highway and selling some of the sugarcane directly from his farm. Earlier, by just selling sugarcane, he was getting one lakh rupees, which means less income, but with value addition, Malve is getting Rs 3 lakh more. So now they are getting a total of four lakh rupees annually from sugarcane.
Apart from this Malve also has 277 orange trees on his farm. During fruiting season he earns about Rs 2 to 3 lakh a year by selling oranges. Thus, they are getting Rs 6 lakh from green chilies, Rs 4 lakh from sugarcane, and Rs 2 lakh from selling oranges which means an annual income of around Rs 12 lakh. After meeting the household and agricultural expenses for the year from this amount, about 50 percent of the amount is left with them, which means they are saving six lakh rupees a year and the financial situation has improved. Now they don’t have to take loans for their children’s education as before, and they are living a happy life. Sarveshwar Malve has thanked the experts of KVK, CICR, and Dr. Y.G. Prasad, Director of the Institute. Observing Malve’s success, other farmers around the area are eager to start similar value-added food businesses.
The unconditional support of the Arya Project Team under Krishi Vigyan Kendra, Central Cotton Research Institute, Nagpur has helped to bring smiles to the faces of farmers and inspired other farmers in the area.
