The Youth dreams of a high-paying job with a sustainable income. One youth from Andhra Pradesh however, decided to pursue a different dream, decided to honor the legacy of his father, who is a farmer. Nagendra Naidu Dharmavarapu left his high-paying job and founded Farmties India Private Limited. He used his ancestral family land to cultivate Yellow Dates which is now earning him profits in lakhs.
According to Nagendra, it is important to find one’s niche in farming to earn profits. He found his niche in Yellow Dates, a super food, which is earning him Rs 3.5 lakhs per acre. Nagendra fondly recalls his initial days of brainstorming to make profits. Born into a family of farmers, Nagendra grew up in close proximity to the issues that farmer face on a daily basis.
During his childhood, he showed a keen interest in becoming an agripreneur. Even while Nagendra was in an engineering college, he would frequently return home and spend time on the farm. After completing his degree he pursued an MBA and started working in a startup. He later moved on to companies like Apple, Tracxn, and I-PAC, understanding how quality control and supply chain works. He even acquired a failing company and turned it around into a profit-making one in 2018. However, he was always thinking of how he could enter the agri-space.
While he was enjoying his work, his true passion lay in farming. Hence he decided to take a risk and left his high paying job to pursue his dreams in farming. By late 2018, Nagendra was already looking for a potential product that he could grow. He used his ancestral family land to cultivate Yellow Dates which is now earning him profits in lakhs.
Why ‘Yellow Dates’?
Nagendra was looking for a crop that was niche and with fewer players in the market. He wanted a crop that required at least 5 to 6 lakh rupees as investment per acre. He also wanted something that was very region-specific. He narrowed his search down to avocados, dragon fruit or dates. realised that climatically fresh yellow dates would be new in India but would also grow very well. Dried dates are quite common but fresh dates are relatively unknown but extremely nutritious.
Since Nagendra was not sure how this variety of dates would grow in the climatic conditions, he started with just 20 acres. However, one bite of the fruit was all it took to realise its immense consumer appeal and market potential in the country. With time he started to reach out to bigger players like stores selling organic foods, Swiggy, Big Basket, Zepto, Country Delight etc. What started with just 20 acres of farming land is now an empire of more than 1,400 acres of cultivation with their main focus being maintaining the utmost quality of the dates.