Our farmers have been traditionally growing cotton and soybeans. Those are low earning crops and generally revenue per acre has been around 20 to 40k per year/acre.
We are encouraging farmers to diversify their lands into other options. Last year, we have started working on converting some of the farmers towards Sericulture (silk worm rearing). Mulberry is planted in one acre and then these mulberry leaves are to be laid on long metal / plastic trays inside a shed. Small eggs of silk worm are placed on these leaves and they start eating the leaves. As they continue eating, they wind their saliva around themselves and create a cocoon of silk.
These cocoons are sold in market in Bangalore at good prices. The first batch is of 4 months, but after that the production increases as well as production comes out every 45 to 60 days. So, there are around 6 crops per year. Already 108 farmers have adopted sericulture and others are waiting and watching.
Here are some examples of farmers who have earned