HYDERABAD: Dates, one of the best-known nutritious diets are now cultivated in rural backyard.
Bandaru Agamaiah, a farmer of Narsingbatla village in Nalgonda district has been inspiring farmers with his success story.
A few years ago, 50-year-old Agamaiah went to Gujarat where he got attracted to the date’s cultivation on saline soil. This prompted him to purchased two acres of saline land and starts the cultivation.
Speaking to Telangana Today, Agamaiah said, “We can make profits by taking up cultivation of dates in saline land, especially in the areas where the irrigation facility is not available.”
Agamaiah obtained 110 tissue-culture-derived saplings of dates from a nursery in Gujarat at a cost of 3,000 per plant and planted in his field in 2012.
Date palms take 4 to 8 years after planting before they bear fruit and continued for 40 years.
In 2016, he harvested his first cultivation which was 1.5 tonnes of seeds and earned a profit of 2.70 lakh. He got good rates for his date produce compared to the profit earned after selling crops of paddy and other crops.
With low cost of cultivation, low labour charges and minimum fertilizer usage, there is more interest in local farmers who wants to take up this farming, he said.
“Local farmers visit my farm and enquire about the cultivation method. Some of them are making arrangements to take up the cultivation on their infertile lands,” he added.