Recently I was discussing with one of the local farmers who has a lot of farmland. One of the things that he mentioned was that many farmers are now moving more towards cash crops instead of traditional crops. Crop rotation is common, but instead of doing that, people use their land to plant some trees that are in high demand and yield a better income after 10 years.
Trees that yield higher income
When we plant crops the harvest can happen within a few months and the harvest can happen based on the season change. Then the farmers again sow something else and then do the harvest. This is what usually happens. But recently the trend has changed where the major portion of the farm land goes for cash crop cultivation. A few trees can take some time but yield a great profit when fully grown. These trees include teak wood, sandal, red sandal, beema bamboo etc. People are slowly moving towards cultivating some of these trees.
The problem with trees is that for some tree cultivation, we have to get permission from the government. Sandalwood and Red Sandal fall under that category and we will be able to sell it only to the government and a small percentage is taken by the government. These rules came into existence because of some problems related smuggling that happened years back. These regulations are good but as long as the regulations are easy for farmers to adapt, it is a good one. Otherwise, farmers will be hesitant to grow such crops and the demand for these trees will always be high in the market.
Low maintenance with trees
It is very unlikely that something can go wrong with tree cultivation. Some trees like Banana and Papaya can have problems with the weather conditions but other trees that have sturdy trunks will not have any problems and it will grow by themselves for several years. There is no maintenance required on these trees. This is one of the biggest reasons why people go for such tree cultivation instead of food-based crops. Maybe the first few years might be a little tough and as the trees mature, they pretty much take care of themselves.
Demand for food-based crops will increase
If more farmers take the route of cultivating trees on their farms, Rice and other food based crops will be reduced and this can lead to problems. They even say that if the regular crops are not planted, the soil may no longer be fertile to grow them again. Maybe some small tree-based farming can be done in the meantime but planting a tree and waiting for 10 or 15 years to get the harvest is something that may not work out well and in the meantime, the demand for other food-based crops can increase if more people stop doing the cultivation. In general, people are not doing enough farming. The next generation is slowly picking up on that but it is not as great as how it used to be a couple of decades back. Maybe industrialization and IT jobs can be a big reason for this.
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