RUPAPALI (Sambalpur): Hemanta Kumar Nayak (27) is a post-graduate in Economics, but unlike his friends he did not take up a job. He went back to family farming. The people, who initially scoffed at his decision, had to eat their words when he reaped huge profits from banana cultivation.Today, a role model in Rupapali village near Goshala in the district, Hemanta has gone for plantation crop spread over five hectares. He has even reinvested Rs 10 lakh he made from farming in two years.Initially, Hemanta helped his father Radheshyam Nayak in paddy cultivation over 20 acres. But pest attack saw the family incur huge losses and Hemanta developed an aversion to paddy cultivation. Moreover, the concept of disguised unemployment and bad economics haunted him and he decided to diversify.A meeting organised under the National Horticulture Mission at his village and an exposure trip to Patnagarh in Balangir district changed his attitude towards farming. Following his interaction with successful banana farmers, he decided to plant 3,000 saplings in over 1.5 hectares in 2009. Buoyed by the success, he followed it up with an additional 2 hectares the next year.However, in a departure from traditional cultivation, Hementa has adopted scientific farming. He devised a new method called ‘Fertigation’, acronym for fertiliser and irrigation, which uses drip irrigation to nurture plants using fertilisers.Informing that banana cultivation takes about 11 months for harvesting, Hemanta said that he earns about Rs 1.5 lakh from one hectare. He is also into pisciculture, cow rearing besides paddy cultivation. Moreover, he has gone for inter-cropping with bottle gourd and cucumber.Explaining that there was no problem in marketing the produce, he said that cash crops provide better avenues compared to paddy cultivation. Not only they require less labour, but also provide good returns, he added.Hemanta aspires to form a group with farmers from neighbouring villages and promote banana cultivation over 30 hectares.
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