hello 2013. The year of Bhoomi Crop! Amen.

Hello! Its been a long time since my last post. Come to think of it, time just disappears & before I could look around and take a long breath, it is another new year. Our efforts have even more increased to put to shape the next stage of the farm. We have homed down on four core products in the the greenhouses and four more in the open field. The battle now shifts in the identification of an (honest) greenhouse vendor. The Indian reality of protected farming is as strange as strange could be. On one hand you have the really needy & honest farmers who cant put a greenhouse together because they don't have the bare minimum money to pay for the subsidised structure; on the other hand, you have smart businessmen, not necessarily farmers, who use the subsidies and schemes to to their advantage and the government loses the money which never reaches the desired objective. Well meaning farmers who are inclined to modern farming are few. As in other industries, in greenhouses too, you have a bunch of foreign players, largely from Israel and Holland, few from China, who have agents in India. These firms will quote you unimaginable prices for a structure that defies logic. Either you take it or you leave it. I cant imagine why our research centres, be it the agricultural engineering schools or the famed IITs, or the different nodes of the government bunk this racket. In fact, while the high priced structures are obnoxiously priced, the same are being designed & commissioned of bamboo. They cost a fraction. But again, who is going to bell the cat? The existing agents representing large international firms will keep claiming that bamboo greenhouses are bad and useless and have no longevity. And we will keep on trusting them and pay millions more. Who thinks for the Indian farmer? Anybody? Somebody???