Sweet corn turns around Mysore farmers' lives

Attracted by the growing market for sweet corn, farmers in Mysore district are cultivation it increased numbers.

The demand for sweet corn is quite high from star hotels for preparing quite a few energy-rich items. It has also found shelf space in malls in the city.

With sweet corn soup being popular among customers visiting star hotels and restaurants, the crop is being seen as having good market potential, and the farmers have trying to encash this.

Sweet corn is a commercial crop. It is ready for harvest in about two and a half months. Overgrown corn has no market, and is a good cattlefeed.

About four kg of seeds, 50 kg each of DIP and urea, and another 20-25 kg of NCK an acre will yield 25 quintals of sweet corn, says Shivanna, while loading gunny bags into a truck at his field in Hunasavadi village of Periyapatna taluk.

Shivanna, who took up sweet corn cultivation recently, has found twin advantages in sweet corn cultivation "" one, is the good yield and market potential with a good margin and the other is that after-harvest crop, going as cattlefeed, has helped increase milk output. He has seen his income shoot up.

Besides Shivanna, a former gram panchayat president H P Nagaraju, H A Nagaraju and Shivanne Gowda are among those cultivating sweet corn. They have cultivated the crop on an acre each.

Agents in Bangalore supply the seeds and fertiliser. A kg of seeds costs between Rs 100 and Rs 400. Another Rs l,800 is required to be spent on fertiliser.

The same agents visit the village and buy the cultivated sweet corn at the price ranging from Rs 6 to Rs 6.50 a kg. They make the payment a fortnight later, after deducting the cost of the seeds and fertiliser supplied by them, the farmers say.

The farmers are aware there is a good demand and a higher price for their crop in the city markets. However, they do not know how to market it in urban centres and besides they are not willing to take the risk also. "The agents have not let us down for the last two years. The crop too has not failed," they say.

"We don't intend to market the crop directly. We earn a profit of about Rs 12,000 per acre of sweet corn. An average of four crops a year fetches a profit of about Rs 50,000. Besides, we get feed for our cattle at no extra cost. We are happy with this," the farmers share their two-year experience.

Metropolitan cities like Bangalore have a good market for sweet corn. The demand there is growing, people realising its nutritious value.

Presently, the demand is limited to star hotels and people in large numbers yet to take to it. The increasing commercial demand, has pushed up its price in Bangalore to Rs 100 a kg and in Mysore sweet corn is sold around Rs 50 a kg.