Strawberries sweeter in sugarcane belt

Amid sprawling acres of standing sugarcane crop in west Uttar Pradesh’s Muzaffarnagar district, a small patch of strawberry plants laden with ripe fruits adds a dash of colour.

Even as debt-ridden cane farmers in the area continue to wait for their turn at the local crushers or for the payment of their cane dues, 26-year-old Yogesh Saini, a Class X dropout who claims to have stumbled upon the unique idea of strawberry farming on the internet, is earning a fortune.

Neatly laid-out baskets laden with strawberries coming out every morning from the farm he took on rent and being loaded on to vans farmers to look at this as an alternative to sugarcane.

In this part of the country, farmers continue to be obsessed with sugarcane — a water guzzler — and consider growing it a matter of pride despite poor payment schedule.

Though the crop hardly requires any care, it doesn’t pay more than Rs 20,000 for a bigha. Saini, a landless farmer, has earned Rs 3 lakh from his seasonal crop on 2.5 bigha of land.

So it makes sense for others to break tradition and switch to strawberries, a crop generally have become the talk of the sown in hilly regions.

I studied about it on the internet and saw a programme on TV as well. I read a bit about the local climate all the year round and then thought of trying it out, Yogesh Saini, a resident of Muzaffarnagar’s Bhopa village, told TOI.

He discussed his out-ofbox idea with his father, Gopal Saini, 55, a vegetable farmer, and they decided to give it a try. “My son is a man of bright ideas. He couldn’t study much but has an innovative mind,” Gopal said.

The two exhausted their savings to take 10 bighas on rent for Rs 60,000. He had to take a loan of another Rs 1 lakh from a local lender to set up his strawberry farm on a 2.5-bigha patch. Strawberry cultivation requires 16-18 degrees Celsius temperature for the seed to sprout.

However, a slightly higher temperature allows saplings to grow. And Yogesh figured this out. “I skipped the seed part and sowed the saplings in September. The day temperature of the month is suitable for the saplings to grow fast. I sold my first consignment of strawberries in mid-February. The fruits will keep ripening and earning revenue for me until mid-April.”

Realising the crop’s monetary potential, other farmers are now approaching Saini for technical knowhow. “Though it requires a lot of hard work in nurturing the crop as compared to sugarcane, their earnings are multifold,” said farmer Gyanendra Singh. Local fruit vendors have also benefited from Yogesh’s crop.