Dragon fruit, also known as pitaya or strawberry pear, has become popular in India over the years. The super crop offers several health and medicinal benefits and can be easily grown even on degraded land. A farmer in Maharashtra has managed to turn the fruit’s cultivation into a profitable venture.
Mahesh Asabe, the founder of Rukmini Farms and Nursery in Solapur, earns Rs 2 crore every year from growing dragon fruit, as per Startup Pedia. Over the years, his venture has turned from a three-acre farm to a sixty-acre field used for growing different varieties of dragon fruit and other items.
How Mahesh Asabe Started Growing Dragon Fruit
Mahesh comes from a farming family in Akola village, Solapur. He received a B.Tech degree in Agricultural Engineering and followed it up with an M.Tech in Agricultural Engineering and Food Processing.
His family used to cultivate traditional crops like maize. In 2013-14, Mahesh’s father started cultivating dragon fruit after his father read about the crop. He read that the fruit needed relatively little water and could grow well even in dry regions.
The family sourced around 9,000 saplings from Bangladesh in an attempt to grow dragon fruit. Mahesh told Startup Pedia that the initial investment for the saplings was around Rs 9.9 lakh. He added that his family were among the first farmers in the state to grow dragon fruit.
The family harvested dragon fruit for the first time in 2015-16. The three-acre farm yielded about five tonnes per acre.
They got Rs 5 lakh from selling the produce, indicating a selling price of almost Rs 33 per kg.
By 2017, Mahesh’s family sold dragon fruit at around Rs 150 to Rs 250 per kg.
Around the same time, Mahesh visited Israel for a 45-day training program as part of his studies. There, he learned about water management, modern agricultural practices and the use of technology to increase crop production. Mahesh visited Vietnam in 2018 to study dragon fruit cultivation practices. He applied what he had learned by setting up demonstration plots on the farm, each covering one acre, to show different cultivation techniques.
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The Farm Today
Mahesh set up drip irrigation and pond farms to improve water management facilities. He also mechanised routine farming activities such as weeding. Today, Mahesh manages Rukmini Farms. Spread over 60 acres of land, the farm also cultivates pomegranate, custard apple, and guava.
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He earns around Rs 1.25 crore annually from dragon fruit cultivation alone, with an annual production of around 200 tonnes. Taking into account other fruits, the total turnover is Rs 2 crore.
