Papaya cultivation, a saving grace for farmers

Farmers in Tamil Nadu’s Coimbatore district are reaping rich returns from papaya cultivation.

“At a time when water has become a scarce resource in this belt, the returns from the papaya farm has been a saving grace for me,” says PS Baladhandayuthapani of PSB Farms. The farm is located at Chinnakuilai in Coimbatore district.

Baladhandayuthapani has cultivated the crop in 5 acres. “We have raised the Taiwanese variety — Red Lady — in our farm.

"The demand for seeds shot up in recent years and the volume of fake seeds in circulation is certainly a cause of concern,” says this farmer.

Once planted, the crop is kept for two years and the tree begins to yield fruit from the eighth month, he explained.

This farmer has planted 900 plantings in an acre. On a conservative estimate, the yield per acre is around 60 kg a year. The fruit is taken at the farm gate at ₹8/kg at present, he said, adding the cost of cultivation was ₹40,000/acre two years ago.

Baladhandayuthapani has also tied up with a company which sources latex at ₹130 a litre.

“The latex yield is around 1.5 tonnes an acre and tuttifruit at ₹3/kg. We sell about 60 tonnes of tuttifruit, he said, without quantifying the profit. He further said that he uses only biofertilizer in his farm. While papaya farming has been a profitable proposition for this farmer and a few others in this belt, the PSB Farm owner did not fail to point out that “farming as such was becoming a difficult proposition because of huge water shortage and lack of minimum support price on farm produce.”

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