Odisha farmer's son builds Rs 1 crore lemon business from small experiment
Santosh Sahu expanded his father's initial Rs 100 investment into a large-scale trading network supplying domestic and international markets.
Santosh Sahu has built a lemon business with an annual turnover exceeding Rs 1 crore, starting from a small plantation in Ogi village, Odisha, according to the Times of India. His father, Kartika Sahu, originally planted 50 indigenous lemon saplings 15 years ago to protect his paddy and groundnut crops from elephants and monkeys.
The elder Sahu purchased the saplings from the horticulture department for Rs 2 each. He chose Kagzi lemons because their thorns and aroma make the plants less attractive to wildlife. After Kartika Sahu died approximately seven years ago, Santosh Sahu took over the farm and expanded the operation.
Santosh Sahu currently grows 120 lemon plants on his one-acre farm and procures produce from more than 200 other farmers. He supplies lemons to markets in Angul, Bhubaneswar, Cuttack, Dhenkanal, and Jamshedpur in Jharkhand, while some Kagzi lemons have reached the US and the UK.
The business model involves bulk trading, where he buys 100 lemons from farmers for between Rs 220 and Rs 280 and sells them for Rs 300 to Rs 320. He told 30Stades that approximately 60 per cent of his annual turnover is used to pay farmers.
The cultivation has spread across Ogi village, where nearly 500 families grow lemons on more than 150 acres. Farmers in the village earn between Rs 25,000 and Rs 30,000 annually from the crop through two harvesting seasons.