According to Horticulture Department estimates, cultivators of leafy vegetables make Rs 2 crore per year.
Nalgonda: Farmers in the tiny village of Rayapuram set an example by profitably transitioning from traditional paddy and cotton crops to leafy vegetables.
Out of a total of 130 farmers in the district’s Rayapuram village of Kethepally mandal, 110 have taken up cultivation of leafy vegetables on more than 60 acres, earning daily income throughout the year.
More than the idea of “One acre – Rs 1 lakh income,” they made more money growing leafy vegetables. According to Horticulture department estimates, cultivators of leafy vegetables make Rs 2 crore per year.
Farmers are growing leafy vegetables such as spinach, mint, coriander, roselle, and sorrel. They shifted to the cultivation of leafy vegetables due to the possibility of earning a high income on a daily basis, as opposed to their previous experiences of incurring losses with cotton and paddy cultivation.
Furthermore, farmers face no marketing challenges with leafy vegetables. It would not be an exaggeration to say that each farmer earned at least Rs 1,000 per day for growing leafy vegetables on one acre of land.
Leafy vegetables will be ready for cutting 25 days after seeding and will produce for 20 days to two months, depending on the variety of the crop.
Apphons, a farmer, told Telangana Today that he has started growing leafy vegetables on his 2 acres of land and earns Rs 2,000 per day.
He has received his salary throughout the year. The cost of cultivation was also lower than that of paddy and cotton. He added that wetting the agriculture field of leafy vegetables once every three days was sufficient.
Another farmer, Banda Bala Swamy, said that merchants from Andhra Pradesh were also visiting their farms to buy leafy vegetables in bulk.
His family’s women were also selling the leafy vegetables directly in the market at Nakrekal, which would help them earn a good living. He added that the remaining leafy vegetables are being sold to whole sale merchants.
According to Vidhya Sagar, Horticulture Officer of Kethepally Mandal, farmers are dividing their agricultural fields into small sections and cultivating leafy vegetables so that they can produce throughout the year.
Crops in one block would be ready for harvest by the end of crop production in another block of the agricultural field. Farmers in Kethepally mandal were cultivating leafy vegetables on more than 300 acres.
