Indian Engineer Grows Crops 'Out of Thin Air'
Although aeroponics may have caught on in the West, in India, it is still in a nascent stage. However, a Coimbatore-based agriculture engineer has mastered the technique after over 10 years of research and development.
Meet Prabhu Shankar, who has grown over 18 types of different vegetables using aeroponics. Additionally, by following his version of aeroponics, one can achieve a level of productivity that is 15 times more than conventional agriculture. Also, as for water, his aeroponic setup uses only 10 percent of what is used in traditional farming methods.
“Small farmers do all their work on their own. But, in the case of farmers who are into commercial agriculture, farm size is a problem. Managing different aspects of agriculture in big farms like crop selection, irrigation, applying fertilizers can be a difficult task. Also, these farms need large amounts of water when we are already facing water shortage,” states the 47-year-old.
To make this technique more accessible to commercial farmers, Prabhu launched his startup ‘Neoponics’, under his company Neoponics Projects India Pvt. Ltd, in January 2019. Neoponics provides the services of setting up customized aeroponic farms, known as ‘neo farms’, to commercial farmers.
Read more at The Better India (Angarika Gogoi)
Publication date: Tue 14 Apr 2020