If you are a farmer, open our site as you are interested in reading the story of another farmer, Have you seen 11000 kg of Tapioca in a single harvest at any time? Or Did you hear of it anytime?
If not, you are going to hear, and also you will know how this happened, the struggles and success of that farmer are provided in this story. So, without any further delay, let’s get started!!
Inspiring Story of a Farming Enthusiast Who Turned His Rubber Plantation Into Organic Farm
Vinod Venugopal is a man from Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, who does not stop his love of agriculture by owning a rubber plantation. Even though it is very easy to maintain rubber, he was never satisfied with it.
Presently, Vinod is 46 Years old and we are looking into the story of him who replaced a rubber plantation with an Organic farm and got successful in it.
So, look forward to the article and see what Vinod has grown by replacing the rubber plantation, why he changed rubber to other crops and many more doubts are revealed.
- Vinod is a botany graduate, and he has always aspired to do something that keeps him in the soil and close to nature.
- So, like that he started to maintain the rubber plantation, many of you know that is very easy to maintain and gives good profits too.
- But Vinod was not satisfied with just rubber, and he decided to replace the rubber plantation with an organic farm, and was interested in nurturing a wide range of crops.
- By this, in 2019, he started working on it with other two partners. Vinod not only looks after the rubber trees but also works as a regional manager of a medical devices company.
- And replaced rubber trees with tapioca on his land. Due to his hard work, he has seen success in eight months as they harvested 11 tonnes of tapioca in a single harvest.
- This has happened in his land Malayam in Thiruvananthapuram.
Challenges That Vinod Has Faced Before Success
As we have seen he was successful in eight months, but those eight months were not easy for him, see why.
- Own family members, neighbors, and many people criticized Vinod for removing super beneficial and easy-to-maintain rubber trees.
- But without listening to any of them, he started clearing land in 2019, and he posted on his Facebook page that he needed partners for his organic farm.
- He started inviting the people who were interested in his venture.
- Vinod not looked for partners to invest their money in this venture, he looked for people who could invest their time to make their dream come true.
- Finally, he found two farming enthusiasts like Vinod, from Thiruvananthapuram.
- The names of those partners are Anu Joseph and Philip Chacko. And these two were from farming backgrounds and both are very interested in the venture.
- As the soil and land were very fertile, Vinod had confidence that any type of plant could grow in this red soil and he decided to start growing short-term crops.
- He doesn’t want to just stop growing tapioca but in 2020, due to the lockdown, he was not able to collect any fruit or vegetable seeds.
- The first harvest of tapioca was taken in September 2020.
Vinod Ideology on How To Grow and What to Grow in Organic Farm
Here we are going to see the idealogy that Vinod has to turn over his 1.5 acres of land into an organic farm.
- Vinod and his partners have an idea to cultivate both short-term and long-term plants so that they will get revenue throughout the year.
- You may have doubts about what are short-term and long-term plants. Short-term plants are like ginger, Yam, turmeric, etc.., when it comes to long-term they are coconut trees, pepper, areca nut trees, cashew nut trees, curry leaf, drumstick, etc.
- They wanted to store the seeds of those trees too for the next season, after selling some amount of crop.
- And these trios are choosing the crops that don’t require daily supervision and maintenance because doing other full-time jobs and looking after this 1.5-acre land is not easy for Vinod and his partners.
- Along with other plants, Vinod also wanted to try Malaysian citrus lemon and planted 50 trees of it. The speciality of that lemons is they are seedless and rare variety and they are very juicy.
- Recently, Vinod has also started marigold flower cultivation in 50 cents of his land.
Key Outcomes
Vinod Venugopal a farming enthusiast from Kerala, has proved that you do not want to quit your job to achieve your dreams, as there is a special way to reach them if we think of them. Vinod has planned his interest in agriculture without disturbing his career.
Vinod says that he grew the farm only in an organic way by using cow dung, chicken manure, and earthworm compost.
He is also interested in coming up with value-added products in the future under their farm with the brand name “Farm in Trivandrum”.