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I don't know whether I should ask this question here or not, but I could not find any stackexchange website related to agriculture, so I found this website most near to agriculture, and I think that there are experienced plant growers of many countries here. If so, please give me proper guidance.

I live in a rural area of ​​India and my ancestors have been cultivating land for many years, and now I am also interested in it. We have done traditional farming for many years, like wheat, mustard, millet and cotton.

Is it possible to cultivate the land as to self-sustain my family and to have a living standard close to that of a doctor or engineer? What should I cultivate and how to cultivate in order to earn self-sustainability as fast as possible?

What steps do I take to reach my goal?

Editor's note: there are parts of the world where growing plants is considered to be farming, especially in rural communities where mechanization is less common. Due to the fact that in more technologized areas of the world farming is considered to be large-scale agriculture and often involves animal farming, I have replaced this term with growing plants in order to reduce ambiguity.

Alina
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Praveen Yadav
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3 Answers3

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I can tell you the situation in the Netherlands (Europe), which I expect to be very different from India.

In the Netherlands about 20 % of all (working) millionaires are farmers. Most of these farmers have cows, for milk production. The reason they are 'tagged' millionaires is because they own land, and land is expensive in a small country as the Netherlands. So these farmers are especially rich on paper, not so much in having money on the bank. Of course in The Netherlands (or Europe) we also have a lot of funding by the government, to help farmers. If the price of milk is too low, the government will compensate. So I think the situation is very different from the situation in India.

If you want my opinion, and I am not a farmer but a biologist, if you want to make more money with farming than average, you should find a crop that is special. A crop that nobody wants to grow, like finding a niche in the market.

Good luck!

benn
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Yes, but you must be smarter than a doctor or engineer: some of the richest are php engineers.

It is mainly economy: if there are many people that could do something, they will fight to produce it for less, the price will be low.

So to have high gain you need something unique or seldom. Often this could be a terroir (just a piece of land in a well named place), or a lot of land (so less competition, but now the competition is at world level), a good producer (so being a good engineer, to reduce costs and optimizing production for you place, culture, etc.) or a niche product (which sometime is linked to "terroir"). What buyers are looking for? Could you produce it for them? Doesn't look old product, but pharmaceutical industry needs a lot of herbs. The problem that few people know how to produce them (so you need to be a scientist and try). Chemical, perfume industries are also looking for good stuffs (and they pay well). Special tea, wine, etc. are also well received (but more difficult to differentiate from others).

Or just increase your land area, and be the smart person that explain the other how to do things.

Giacomo Catenazzi
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The main risk with farming is there is risk. You can not control the weather. Farming unfortunately has become a major game completely embroiled in politics. Many times you make more money NOT planting than you will trying to grow food or whatever.

Part of the reward from farming is hard to quantify or qualify. So if money is important, farming is probably not going to be your thing. Selling it to someone would be far better.

If you would like to take a peek into this world and this venue to 'make a living' you definitely need to take agricultural classes; botany, soils, geology, entomology, politics with a specialty for farming, grow your own gardens starting immediately.

Farming is a field where you will learn about our world that few of your friends would or could understand. Get as much education as possible, get going collecting experience of any kind and be very humble. Farming, growing plants is not something one can just start doing...but the act of learning in this field is more valuable than you can imagine. You will never make as much as 'doctors' or 'engineers'...but making lots of money is not what happiness and success is truly all about.

stormy
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