A farmer from Odisha’s Angul district has turned a small lemon plantation his father started into a business with an annual turnover of over Rs 1 crore. Santosh Sahu, from Ogi village, has built a network of more than 200 farmers and taken the village’s indigenous Kagzi lemons to international markets, including the US and the UK.
The story began around 15 years ago. Santosh’s father, Kartika Sahu, was looking for a crop that could survive repeated attacks by elephants and monkeys. The animals often damaged crops such as paddy and groundnuts. This caused losses for farmers.
Kartika decided to try lemon farming. He bought 50 kagzi lemon saplings from the horticulture department. Each sapling cost Rs 2. His total investment was just Rs 100. The experiment was successful. The plants grew and started giving lemons. Other farmers in the village also became interested in growing the fruit.
After his father’s death around seven years ago, Santosh took charge of the farm. He slowly turned the small plantation into a bigger business. Santosh noticed that farmers were growing lemons but had limited buyers. Many of them sold their produce in local markets.
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He decided to buy lemons from these farmers and sell them in bigger markets. This helped farmers reach more buyers and sell larger quantities.
“Earlier, my father used to sell his lemons in the local market. I started purchasing lemons from other farmers and taking them to bigger markets. This helped us reach more buyers and sell larger quantities,” Santosh told 30States.
Santosh grows lemons on his one-acre farm. He has around 120 lemon plants. He also buys lemons from more than 200 farmers. The produce is sold in Angul, Bhubaneswar, Cuttack and Dhenkanal. His business has also reached Jamshedpur in Jharkhand. The lemons are exported to the US and the UK.
Santosh buys 100 lemons from farmers for Rs 220-280. He then sells them for Rs 300-320. Around 60% of his total turnover goes towards these payments. He also sells lemon saplings for Rs 20 each. “I cultivate indigenous lemons on one acre and also trade produce sourced from more than 200 farmers in the village. My annual turnover is over Rs 1 crore, generated during two major harvesting seasons,” he said.
The lemons are known as kagzi nimbu. They have thin skin and contain a lot of juice. A lemon tree starts giving fruit after three to four years. Older trees produce more lemons. Santosh explained how much fruit a mature tree can produce. He said, “After eight to nine years, a tree growing up to 12 feet can produce more than 1,000 lemons every week during the harvesting season, while a 10-foot tree yields over 600.”
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Around 500 of the village’s nearly 700 households now grow lemons. The crop covers more than 150 acres of land in and around the village. Farmers earn an average of Rs 25,000-30,000 a year from lemon farming. Another farmer grows around 200 lemon plants on his 1.5-acre farm and earns approximately Rs 80,000 from two harvesting seasons.
Panchanan Sahu, a farmer from the village, said he sells his lemons to Santosh. “We harvest the lemons from our trees and sell them to Santosh. We give him around 3,000 to 4,000 lemons, depending on the quantity we harvest, and he pays us for the produce. He then sells them in Cuttack and Bhubaneswar. We depend on this income to support our families,” he told Odisha TV.
What started with 50 saplings worth Rs 100 has now become a business with an annual turnover of over Rs 1 crore.
