In the arid countryside of Rajasthan, the state's experiment of integrating traditional farming of millets, wheat and pulses with more lucrative forms of allied cultivation is finally bearing fruits.
A glimpse of this can be caught in 45-year-old Ram Karan Khader's lush green farm in Bari village, around 120 km west of state capital Jaipur.
Strikingly different from the village's brown and parched landscape, Khader's five bighas of land are lined with columns of citrus fruit trees like lemons and oranges and pomegranates while tall 'bel' trees line the boundaries.
Khader switched from farming millets and wheat to "organic" farming of fruits in 2008. Around the same time the Rajasthan government introduced subsidies, easy loans and technical assistance to promote horticulture, olericulture, poultry and dairy.
For Khader, a former homeguard jawan, his initial investment of Rs 60,000 and eight years of toil are paying off.
"Last year, I sold Rs 4 lakh worth of fruits, mainly pomegranates, in the local mandis and Rs 8 lakh worth of fruit saplings," he says, adding millets and wheat hardly fetched him Rs 25,000 in a season.
Since his first produce in 2009, the farmer's income has increased manifold and he plans to double his current earnings by tying up with food processing units.
"If one can grow fruit trees the dividends are extremely high per hectare. More than four times of what you get from millets, wheat and pulses," says Kala Ramji, a traditional farmer-turned-fruit grower with 5,000 trees in Barmar district.
Land under pomegranate farming increased from 793 hectares in 2010-11 to 2,065 hectares in 2014-15 while for oranges it increased from 9,315 hectares to 11,810 hectares in the corresponding period, as per Rajasthan Horticulture Board (RHB) data.
"More farmers are taking up fruit farming because of the high yield and returns per hectare, and subsidies on micro- irrigation facilities like drip irrigation, which is essential in water scarce areas," says Assistant Director Horticulture Baghirath Sabal.
Compared to 33,534 hectares of fruit farms in 2010-11, in 2014-15 it increased to 39,438 hectares while fruit production rose from 4.57 lakh metric ton to 7.5 lakh metric ton in the corresponding period, RHB data says.
"They either completely switch over or partially renovate their land for fruit farming. Either ways the trend towards it is increasing," Sikar Agricultural Superintendent Kesar Dev says.
Despite its semi-arid conditions, Rajasthan is the sixth
largest producer of citrus fruits in India and the fourth and eighth largest producer of orange and pomegranate respectively, according to RHB.
"The government is trying to integrate traditional agriculture with allied forms of farming. Fruit cultivation is a major focus area. Area under fruit cultivation will be doubled in the next five years," says state Agriculture Minister Prabhu Lal Saini.
He adds that to help fruit farmers reap richer dividends, through advanced agro-technologies, food processing and marketing, the state is looking to forge new ties with experts and institutions across the globe in its agri-meet (GRAM) next month.
Agriculture officials say the state during GRAM will introduce farmers to custard apples, dragon fruit and date palm farming.
"Farming of custard apple and dragon fruit will be a major thrust area of the government. They will be new entrants in the fruit farming scene that is currently dominated by oranges and pomegranates," says Saini, adding the state was also working on increasing date palm production.
Researchers at the Centre of Excellence for Agriculture (CoEA) in Jaipur hope to start transfer of dragon fruit saplings by this fiscal-end to farmers.
"One of our main research areas in recent years has been with the two fruits (custard apple and dragon fruit). They will be soon introduced in mainstream farming," says senior agriculture department officer with CoEA, Yogesh Kumar Verma.
Custard apple in Rajasthan at present grows in 534 hectares while dragon fruit is under research at the CoEA and other agriculture research centres. Date palm is being cultivated through tissue culture at farms in Bikaner and Jaisalmer.
