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A Ganjam farmer shows the way

Photo: Lingaraj Panda

Sweet success: The care takers of the sweet corn field checking the plants at Balipada in Ganjam district on Friday. —

BERHAMPUR: A farmer of Belapada village in Ganjam district, Jitendra Kumar Sahu has started cultivating sweet corn on commercial basis on his own.

Mr Sahu claims to be the first farmer in the State to take up cultivation of sweet corn on commercial basis as its cultivation is not promoted in the state. Even its seed was not available in Orissa, he said. Although cultivation of maize is quite popular in tribal areas of the State yet cultivation of sweet corn was never done here.

Jitendra said he came across sweet corn for the first time during his family’s visit to Rajasthan in December 2006. He himself used to cultivate common corn or maize. He was astonished to find that a variety of corn with the name sweet corn was being sold for Rs 10 per piece at Mount Abu.

As an inquisitive farmer he searched for seeds of sweet corn and also held discussions with farmers of Rajasthan regarding its cultivation. He bought 200 grams of sweet corn seeds for Rs 300 from Jaipur.

After returning back he sowed these seeds on a small piece of land on an experiment basis.

His total harvest was more than 1500 sweet corns which he sold for Rs 3000 in the market. He made a seed stock from his own harvest. With those seeds he cultivated sweet corn on three acres during current winter. To his luck he had a bumper crop of sweet corn.

The demand for fresh sweet corn has also increased in the city. Sweet corn cannot be stored unlike field corn varieties it is picked up when grains are immature.

Jitendra has already prepared a large seed bank of sweet corn on his own efforts during this time.

He has planned to promote its cultivation in nearby areas by selling the seeds at Rs. 40 per 100 grams.

Seeing its market some more maize cultivators have approached Jitendra to help them in its cultivation. If its cultivation picks up in Ganjam district then inquisitiveness of Jitendra would surely have a major hand in it.

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