Colonel Sujan Mohanty (57), is a retired military guy who got down to create a a success existence for himself submit his provider of twenty-two years. A civil engineer as neatly, he now cultivates and manages an orchid farm for a residing.
Named ‘Orchid n Extra’, the farm is positioned in Kantapada village close to Chandaka Flora and fauna Sanctuary, about 23 km from Bhubaneswar, Odisha.
At the side of the assistance of his spouse, Monalisa Mohanty (53), his outfit has received an annual turnover of about Rs 15 lakh, a feat which they controlled to reach in about two and a part years.
Whilst orchid cultivation isn’t a very easy feat, Sujan stocks what qualities are required to make this a fruitful vocation.
“One must have persistence and perseverance to soak up this process. One has to stay up for two years for an appropriate and right kind yield to start with. An acre of land might best produce 60,000 vegetation, first of all, however wait and watch in surprise how that quantity slowly shoots as much as nearly two lakhs quickly. My coaching within the military has helped me immensely with this career. That’s the one reason I’m now ready to take advantage of it,” he says.
“Because the spouse of a military guy, I’ve been ingrained with those characteristics as neatly. I’ve to play the function of a powerful reinforce device each in his private {and professional} existence,” provides Monalisa.
Alternatively, it wasn’t all the time clean crusing for Sujan sooner than he determined on orchid cultivation, a mission which is completely alien to him. However with natural determination and backbone, his concept took root after which there was once no turning again.
How ‘Orchids N Extra’ got here to be
Sujan were in a repair over his long run after his retirement in 2012. He sought after to damage into a brand new mission however was once baffled via the collection of choices to be had. His hobby, on the other hand, lay in floriculture. However he knew he wanted time to make a sensible selection.
So he proceeded to enroll in Bengaluru-based Café Espresso Day Workforce as the pinnacle of amenities.
After running there for 365 days, he converted to Adani Workforce as the pinnacle of operations in Ahmedabad until 2016. Then he returned to Bhubaneswar, the place he was once born and taken up, to calm down. Right here he joined a civil engineering consultancy company referred to as Op & Hs Infra as director-partner.
“As a military guy, I will’t be idle. The roles no longer best stored me busy but in addition gave me time to investigate various kinds of floriculture,” Sujan explains.
However one thing was once amiss. The nagging sense of doing one thing of his personal stored him busy. He went on researching, browsing the web, debating and discussing other industry mission concepts along with his pals and spouse. In any case, in 2017, the Mohantys zeroed in on orchid farming.
“I as soon as toyed with the theory of rose cultivation. After I learnt that the longevity of a plucked rose is 2 to 3 days and that of an orchid’s vase (a set-up of coconut husks the place orchids develop) is 20 to 30 days, I opted for this as a substitute,” says Sujan.
However that got here with its personal set of issues. For one, he had no land or finances to reinforce the theory.
The analysis and efforts that went into environment it up
Sujan then met professionals from Odisha College of Agriculture and Generation (OUAT) and more than a few orchid growers in Huma of Ganjam district to get the grasp of it.
“My spouse and I toured throughout India for 8 months in 2018 to fulfill the farmers there and get hands-on wisdom of the talent,” he says.
One of the vital puts that they toured had been Siliguri in Assam, Shillong in Meghalaya, and Baramati close to Pune in Maharashtra.
Kitted out with initial wisdom, the couple geared as much as make the leap into farming. They procured a patch of two,500 sq toes on hire from an deserted farm of just about 15 acres in Kantapada.
They then secured a mortgage of about Rs 24 lakh with some 50 % subsidy from the horticulture division within the Khordha district.
Dr Debasish Mishra, the assistant director (horticulture), Khordha, explains how the scheme for other people within the occupation works. “Below the Safe Cultivation Part of Undertaking for Built-in Construction of Horticulture (MIDH) of the central govt, the scheme promotes other horticulture sectors that come with vegetation, fragrant vegetation, greens, tuber plants roots and mushrooms,” he says.
Availing of some great benefits of this scheme, Sujan arrange a polyhouse — a kind of specialized construction that utilises managed climatic stipulations for the expansion of vegetation — at the land to accommodate orchid saplings.
“Plants like orchids can develop neatly inside of a polyhouse when the temperature is 20 to twenty-five levels Celsius and humidity levels between 40 to 70 %. But even so, a micro-irrigation set-up is an added fixture as orchids require little water. Alternatively, quantifying the water requirement is hard because it differs from species to species,” says Dr (Prof) Sharat Chandra Sahoo of the dept of fruit science and horticulture of OUAT.
The Mohantys then proceeded to get white and red orchid saplings from Bengaluru as town has the most productive sorts of orchids to be had. They employed round 25 native labourers to get began with the farm.
Different stumbling blocks alongside their method
With Chandaka Flora and fauna Sanctuary flanking the farm, there was once a terror of untamed animals equivalent to elephants, boars and deer coming and ruining the plot. The presence of venomous snakes was once any other giant factor that haunted Sujan.
“I arrange a sun fence across the polyhouse at a value of about Rs 6 lakh. I stored pots with carbolic acid at their access issues, the scent of which supposedly assists in keeping snakes away. I learnt this data from the web,” says Sujan, reporting that this trick has thus far labored rather well at the farm.
The percentages had been nonetheless stacked towards him because the orchids began blooming within the polyhouse best after 10 months. They had been small in dimension and didn’t click on with the flower marketplace of Cuttack and Bhubaneswar.
The marketplace there’s stated to have an annual turnover of over Rs 100 crore, the place orchids have a percentage of just about 8 %. Sujan, on the other hand, bided his time. As soon as his orchids grew in form and dimension, they began to promote between Rs 15 and Rs 30. He additionally controlled the gross sales and advertising purposes of the farm and shortly the industry began selecting up momentum. Their industry even forayed into the markets of Kolkata, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Pune.
Herbal failures performed a dampener
Simply because the Mohantys started reaping the result of their laborious paintings, cyclone Fani struck in Might 2019. The roof of the polyhouse was once blown away and part of its boundary wall collapsed right through the stormy downpour. The couple needed to spend over Rs 6 lakh from their private financial savings to reset issues.
This crisis was once quickly adopted via the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, bringing the entirety to a standstill. Monalisa — who takes care of the control of the polyhouse and operations inside of it — stated that they didn’t let those setbacks depart them nonplussed.
“We offered our orchids to policemen, well being staff and different frontline warriors as a mark of admire for his or her selfless provider right through this attempting time,” she says.
“We additionally made orchid bouquets right through the second one wave of the pandemic and bought them at a worth between Rs 500 and Rs 1,000. Even though the sale proceeds weren’t sufficient, it will meet just about 15 % of our control value,” she says, bringing up that they slowly limped again to normalcy. “We had been ready to maintain ourselves on my husband’s pension and the cash we stored. We also are thankful that shall we lend a hand our body of workers right through that point of disaster,” she provides.
What’s subsequent for the farm
Sujan has made up his thoughts to shop for any other patch of two,500 sq toes subsequent to his present plot to amplify the orchid farm. To that impact, he has already implemented for a mortgage of about Rs 55 lakh with a 50 % subsidy.
The state govt endeavor referred to as Agricultural Promotion and Funding Company, supplies monetary help beneath the Mukhyamantri Krushi Udyog Yojana, an initiative of the state govt, he informs.
Even though Colonel Sujan’s major focal point is on floriculture, he’s now turning to apiculture, which is beekeeping.
When he to begin with began the orchid farm, he had procured 15 containers of bees and colonies as neatly. This got here at a value of Rs 4,000 every. Later, he added 25 extra colonies.
The honey from the primary batch sells at Rs 1,200 according to litre, bringing in an annual turnover of over Rs 2.5 lakh. Each those practices have immensely benefited every different, explains Sujan. “The apiculture has helped spice up the orchid manufacturing via 20 % via pollination,” he provides.
“Now, my spouse and I educate farmers and interns at OUAT and on the Siksa ‘O’ Anusandhan orchid farming and apiculture. Thus far, now we have briefed just about 15 batches of farmers and interns,” he provides, satisfied that he may deliver his entrepreneurial dream to luck.
Authored via Niroj Ranjan Misra.
Edited via Padmashree Pande; All image credit to Sujan Mohanty.