Punjab: MBA farmer turns millionaire with a profit of Rs6 lakh per acre

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POSTED ON JANUARY 14, 2022 BY RASHMI PRATAP
When Rajeev Bhaskar passed out of the G B Pant University of Agriculture in Uttarakhand with a degree in BSc. Horticulture, little did he know that he would be a farmer one day. He did not come from a family of farmers and his graduate degree in 2013 landed him a job in Raipur-based VNR Seeds, where he became part of the sales and marketing team.

While working at VNR, Rajeev completed his MBA from Symbiosis Institute of Management Studies and was looking after VNR’s sales operations in north India when the farming bug bit him. Dealing with sales of seeds and saplings for over four years, Rajeev thought of trying plantation firsthand.

“In those four years, I had learned so much about farming especially about the Thai Guava variety that I was keen to take up horticulture myself. It would be just implementation of the knowledge I had been disseminating to others as a sales representative of the seed company,” he says.
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Thai Guava has a shelf life of 12 days at a room temperature of 25 degrees Celsius. With the size of a softball and mildly sweet taste, it is one of the most in-demand varieties in India right now.

Rajeev decided to give it a try.
The trial fields
So in September 2017, he took 5 acres of land on lease in Panchkula, Haryana. The land belonged to a farmer who could not look after the Thai guava plants, which had been planted in 2015. “I took over the farm and figured out what was to be done. The plants were already two years old and needed fertilisers and sprays besides regular irrigation,” says Rajeev, who is from Uttarakhand.
Thai Guava has high demand due to its mildly sweet taste and long shelf life. Pic: Courtesy Rajeev Bhaskar
He practices residue-free farming, which implies the use of pesticides and fungicides below the level that can cause harm to humans by maintaining a gap between spraying and harvesting.
Every pesticide has a specific pre-harvest interval (PHI), which is the wait time between a pesticide application and when a crop can be harvested. “Newer products have PHI of only 3 to 5 days while older products have 45 to 60 days. We use hydrogen peroxide, which doesn’t have any residue and has no direct impact on the fruit,” he says.
“Moreover, no spray is done 15-20 days before the harvest,” he adds.
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Residue-free farming is gaining traction alongside organic farming in India because of the availability of products with low PHI, high nutrition content in produce and its ability to give good yields without adversely i.mpacting soil quality.

Guava plants begin fruiting in the third year when each plant typically gives 10kg of fruits. The output rises in the subsequent year to 25 kg and continues at this average during the 15-year-life of the plant.

Rajeev Bhaskar at his farm. In the background, plants can be seen after bagging. Pic: courtesy Rajeev Bhaskar
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