Rice trader turns dragon fruit farmer, earns Rs 9 lakh per acre

When Santosh Kumar Behera’s rice trading business collapsed after the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, he found himself at a crossroads. After completing his B.Com in 2010, Santosh had to shoulder family responsibilities following the untimely demise of his father, who was a doctor.

With mounting business losses and limited income from rice farming, survival became a challenge. It was at this difficult stage that a conversation with a friend changed the course of his life.

Advertisment

Add 30 Stades As A Trusted Source

“My friend Jyoti Narayan told me about dragon fruit farming, and as I have ancestral land. He even lent me monetary support to start,” Santosh tells 30Stades.

Dragon fruit farming using the Pole and Ring method

He went to Sangareddy, Telangana, to take training on dragon fruit farming using the Pole and Ring method, which is highly productive. “I put up 500 concrete poles of 5 ft height each with a cemented ring of 2 ft radius on top to support vine growth. It creates an umbrella-shaped canopy. I planted four vines per pole,” he says.

This method supports about 1,500 to 2,000 plants per acre. Since the plant is supported by a pole, it encourages upward growth, reduces trailing, and improves pollination, which in turn increases fruit production.

Santosh bought 2,000 dragon fruit saplings from Sangareddy to his village, Iswarpur, under the Soro block in Balasore district of Odisha. “I hired local farm labourers to plant the saplings,” he adds.

Also Read: Three engineers and an ex-banker earning lakhs from dragon fruit farming

Making money with organic dragon fruit

Five years later, Santosh’s decision to start organic farming of dragon fruit has paid off.

From the same one acre, he produced 8 tonnes of dragon fruit last year, earning around Rs 9 lakh (at Rs 110 per kg). In the last four years, the total output has been 15 tonnes as production increases with the plant’s age.

Encouraged by the profitability and growing market demand for the exotic fruit, Santosh has now expanded its farming to three acres, with a target of producing nearly 40 tonnes in a season and earning up to Rs 40 lakh.

Following organic practices, Santosh used cow dung manure, neem cake, and chicken manure for fertigation.

After fertigation, he applied beneficial bacterial cultures such as nitrogen-fixing bacteria, phosphate-mobilising bacteria, and potassium-mobilising bacteria to improve plant growth. “For micronutrient supplementation, I used bone manure and rock phosphate,” he says.

The farm yielded its first commercial harvest in 2021, producing 1.3 tonnes of dragon fruit from the one-acre plot. Production increased to 2.5 tonnes in 2022, and in 2025, he harvested eight tonnes from the same 2,000 plants.

He recalls selling dragon fruit at Rs 145 per kg in 2021, while the price stood at Rs 110 per kg in December 2025. Despite fluctuations in market prices, Santosh maintains that dragon fruit farming offers strong returns.

After harvesting, the fruits are packed in cartons and sold to traders. “I sell dragon fruit to dealers in Soro, Balasore, Bhadrak and Jaleswar, and there is huge demand for the fruit,” he adds.

Also Read: Engineer converts barren land into dragon fruit farm, earns Rs22 lakh from just 1 acre

Trellis method

Encouraged by the profitability and rising market demand, Santosh decided to expand his dragon fruit cultivation. He has now taken up farming on an additional two acres using the trellis method, a high-density, high-investment, and high-production system. In this method, GI pipes are fixed between two cemented poles placed 10 feet apart.

Dragon fruit saplings are planted between the poles, with four saplings around each pole and eight saplings planted in between. Using this system, 4,000 saplings have been planted per acre, totalling 8,000 saplings across two acres.

According to Santosh, production under the trellis method is nearly double compared to the Pole and Ring method.

“After gaining experience from one acre under the Pole and Ring method, I started dragon fruit farming on another two acres using the trellis method. My target is to produce 30 tonnes from these two acres,” he says.

“Once I reach higher production levels, I plan to supply dragon fruit to other parts of Odisha as well as outside the state,” he says.

Santosh is also planning to produce dragon fruit during the off-season, from December to February, by installing lighting arrangements in the two-acre trellis plot.

Building on the success of dragon fruit farming, Santosh diversified further in 2025 by taking up strawberry cultivation on 25 decimals of land, which also yielded good results. “After seeing the success of dragon fruit farming, I decided to try strawberry cultivation on 25 decimals, and I received very good production from it as well,” he adds.

(Malay Ray is a Rourkela-based journalist. He writes on social issues, human interest stories, startups, the environment, women empowerment and tribal life.)

Also Read: 67-year-old woman turns barren land into empire of dragon fruit, juice and saplings

Look up our YouTube Channel