Decade and a failed biz later, Punjab's Hoshiarpur farmer finds success — and money — in seedless cucumbers

Indian Express

2 days ago

Beneath sheets of polyfilm, nets, and walk-in tunnels spread across 3 acres in Bersha village of Punjab's Hoshiarpur district, a quiet revolution is taking shape quite literally.
However, if the acres could talk, they would have shared a different story a decade ago.
After completing his B.Com, Arvinder Singh Kang, 52, started a modest transport business in Delhi in 2011.
However, his journey met with roadblocks when the then Delhi government made a series of policy changes and he suffered huge losses.
On the insistence of his mother, who wanted her two sons to work on their fields and be more connected to the roots, Arvinder returned to his village in 2013.
With no prior knowledge of farming, Arvinder, then 40, started experimenting.
What started as a half-acre experiment in 2013, has now grown into a thriving three-acre operation in 12 years.
He now cultivates high-yield seedless cucumbers under protected structures, including polyhouse, net house, and walk-in tunnels.
His method has turned the crop into a year-round source of income, earning him a net profit of around Rs 12 lakh per acre — over 10 times what a farmer earns from growing wheat and paddy combined.
His family owns 10 acres in total.
While he grows the seedless cucumbers on 3 acres, on the rest, he grows wheat, paddy, and sugarcane.
Arvinder spent much of his early life moving across the country with his family, as his father worked as a Radar and Communication Engineer with the Airports Authority of India.
'When my transport business in Delhi didn't do well, I decided to return to the village where my parents had settled after my father's retirement in 1997,' he says, adding that his mother wanted him and his brother to start working on their land.
This land, part of two murabbas gifted to his great-grandfather Sunder Singh Kang, by Queen Victoria for his service in World War I, became the foundation for Arvinder's second innings — as a farmer.
'After returning, I gave a lot of thought to what I should grow, since I had no knowledge of farming,' says Arvinder, adding, 'I spent five to six months researching and meeting experienced farmers such as Harbinder Singh Sandhu, who has long practiced polyhouse farming in Hoshiarpur. Eventually, I began cultivating capsicum under protected structures on half an acre. I did this from 2013 to 2016.'
He later turned to seedless cucumber farming using polyhouses, net houses, and walk-in tunnels.
'Capsicum is almost a year-round crop. Cultivation begins in July, with the first harvest in November, continuing until June. It does give a good return, but with cucumbers, I can take three high-yeild growing cycles in a year. The first runs from mid-February to mid-May, the second from late May to the end of August, and the third from September to the end of December. I leave my polyhouses idle from January to mid-February during the extreme winter,' he says, adding each cucumber cycle involves planting about 9,000 plants per acre.
Harvesting takes place every other day, with yields of around 80 bags per harvest, each weighing 20 kg.
Before shifting to cucumbers, Kang received training at the Indo-Israel Centre of Excellence for Vegetables in Kartarpur (Jalandhar).
He gets his seedlings prepared from the same Centre of Excellence, where they are raised under controlled temperature conditions—crucial during extreme summer and winter months.
'Self-preparing nurseries in such temperatures isn't feasible; in extreme weathers conditions seedlings can only be grown properly in climate-controlled environments. Once the seedlings are about a month old, I transplant them into my polyhouse, net house, and tunnels,' he adds.
'The sell the crop both directly from the farm and through local mandis, fetching an average of Rs 18–20 per kg throughout the year. The produce sells immediately after harvest.'
He follows a strict cropping cycle: 'I don't keep the first and second crop cycles beyond 2.5 to 3 months. After 10–15 rounds of picking, the yield drops, so I uproot the crop and immediately plant new seedlings. These are ready for harvest just 30 to 32 days after transplanting. The third cycle is the last one in a year, and I keep it for 4 to 4.5 months, as my structures remain unused from January to mid-February due to cold. I use water-soluble fertilisers in very limited amounts, administered through drip irrigation.'
He adds, 'The crop require year-round attention and that's why the returns are so high. This isn't like wheat or paddy, where you sow the crop and return only at harvest time.'
While Kang acknowledges that the initial investment in protected cultivation is significant, he emphasizes that it pays off quickly.
'The cost of setting up one acre of polyhouse is around Rs 42–45 lakh, which includes strong galvanized pillars, polyfilm, and a drip irrigation system. A net house costs around Rs 24 lakh per acre, while walk-in tunnels cost approximately Rs 2.5 lakh per acre,' he says, adding that the best part is that the government provides a 50% subsidy on these structures and they last.
Occasionally, a storm may damage a portion of the polyfilm, but he only replace the torn section.
Kang also provides year-round employment to around a half dozen workers.
'I don't earn even as much from the remaining seven acres—where I grow wheat, paddy, and sugarcane—as I do from just one acre of cucumbers,' he says, adding, 'Expanding protected farming is a gradual process that demands a lot of hard work and patience.'