When people think about starting a kiwi orchard, they often imagine green vines, healthy fruit hanging from branches, and the possibility of earning a good income from a high-value crop. It is an attractive idea, particularly in the hills of Himachal Pradesh, where kiwi cultivation offers farmers an opportunity to diversify beyond traditional crops. But…
If I were starting farming again today, I would still want to understand the soil, the crops, the weather and the land. But I would not spend all my time learning only how to grow a crop. I would spend just as much time learning how to run a farming business. That is one of…
For many Indian farmers, the biggest question is not whether they can grow more. It is whether they can sell what they grow at a better value. We often talk about increasing farm productivity, improving irrigation, using better varieties, adopting technology and reducing production costs. All of these matter. But there is another side of…
For a long time, whenever I heard people talk about artificial intelligence and farming, the conversation seemed to fall into one of two extremes. Either AI was presented as the technology that would completely transform agriculture. Or people worried that machines and AI would eventually replace farmers. I don’t think either view captures what is…
There is something strange about farming. When we talk about farming, most of the attention goes to production. How much did you grow? How many acres did you cultivate? What variety did you plant? What was the yield? How much fertilizer did you use? How did you control pests? These are all important questions. But…
Farming teaches you something very quickly: producing more does not always mean earning more. A farmer can work harder, increase production, improve quality and still find that the final income is not very different. The reason is simple. A large part of the value of agricultural produce is often created after it leaves the farm….
For a long time, I thought the most important part of farming was growing a good crop. If the plants were healthy, the harvest was good and the quality was right, I assumed the rest would somehow work itself out. It doesn’t. One of the biggest changes in the way I think about farming came…
For a long time, I thought of technology and farming as two very different worlds. One was about soil, weather, crops, pruning, irrigation and harvesting. The other was about computers, websites, software and the internet. But the more time I spend around both, the more I realise that they are becoming difficult to separate. A…
There Is a Question Farmers Don’t Ask Enough For a long time, I thought the most important question in farming was simple: How much can I produce? More tomatoes. More kiwi. More vegetables. More yield per acre. Better production. Lower crop losses. It makes sense. Farming is, after all, a production business. But the longer…