In Anantapur, India, progressive farmers are jumping on the bell pepper bandwagon, after seeing the popularity of the vegetable both on the domestic and international markers. Green peppers are popular on the domestic market and red and yellow, on the international.
Green peppers are selling at Rs 25 per kilo in the local open market, while red and yellow fetch between Rs 60 and 80 in the export market.
Roughly about 50 farmers in the district have taken to pepper farming on an experimental basis this year and many farmers who believe in innovation are adopting a ‘wait and see’ attitude, while others are scared of the high volume of the initial investment although the returns are promising.
Shiva Kumar a young B Tech graduate in computers hailing from an agriculture family ventured into capsicum farming in one acre of land at Garladinne. His investment in an acre of land is Rs 4 million. The department of horticulture gave him 50 per cent subsidy which is Rs 2 million and the remaining amount he took as a loan.
"This is a highly commercial crop and yields 60 tons by the time it reaches harvesting stage. A single crop fetches Rs 2.2 million,” said Shiva Kumar.
Horticulture assistant director Ch Sathyanarayana stated that 50 farmers are engaged in capsicum farming from half acre to an acre each.
He stated that the farming can be taken up even under shade net nurseries bringing down the project cost per unit from Rs 4 million to Rs 2 million.
