The hunt for an ideal piece of land

Land acquisition is a major challenge in general. Acquiring farm land, more so. It was time for some strategy formulation. First, I had to list down the common problems that newbie farmers like me could face.

Lack of knowledge of real estate prices, absence of benchmarks to gauge land prices, total ignorance of the ideal factors to look for in a farm were some of the initial challenges. Ignorance of farming practices, challenges in marketing whatever little produce I might come up with, labor problems (including a caretaker for the farm) were the subsequent challenges.

Location would be crucial. Ideally, I should have gone for land within 2-3 hours drive from Bangalore city, but that would pose numerous problems. The biggest was price. Anything above INR 250,000 an acre would be too much. Land around Bangalore costs many multiples of that. Second, there was definitely a chance that Bangalore would grow over the next one or two decades to gobble up my farm land. I didn't want to convert my farm land into residential sites a few years down the line.

The second best option was to look for land in Tirthahalli taluk (Shimoga district). The reasons are listed below:

1. It's in the heart of western ghats, receives plenty of rain and is green throughout the year
2. It's just 2-3 hours from my native village, I could fall back on a few relatives for help and guidance
3. One of my uncles owned a small hotel in Tirthahalli and it would be a ready made market for my farm produce. This establishment needs about 150 liters of milk a day, thousands of coconuts and tons of vegetables a year

With that, the location of my farm was decided! I put out a word to all the agents in Tirthahalli that I was on the look out for some farm land. The following were my criteria:

1. At least 10 acres in one compound (10 acres would give me enough land to experiment with agroforestry, vegetables, areca and coconut)
2. Perfectly legal land with proper records (no encroachments)
3. Water source throughout the year
4. Didn't care much for the current yield and crops as long as the land was legal

 Within a week, a list of 3-4 properties was ready and I set out for inspection. None of them impressed me as they did not qualify for the four points I had set out for myself. Finally, one dry afternoon in May 2010, we were returning from one of these properties and my agent suddenly remembered about one property close by. He said it's very badly maintained and he really didn't want to show it to me. I wanted to take a look and we went over.

It was definitely badly maintained! The owner was a plumber and did good business. He really didn't depend on this farm for income. We saw weeds everywhere and lemongrass had literally covered the entire farm. Grass 7 feet tall prevented us from stepping even a few feet away from the designated walkways through the property. As I stood there, I got a good feeling about the place. Maybe it was an ideal place for natural farming as it was maintained in a natural state anyway!

(Areca plantation covered with weeds)

(Unfortunately, most of the 100 coconut trees look like this, impoverished! They are rain fed, that might be the major cause)

(Weeds covered every available space)

In spite of logic telling me to walk away, my heart told me that this was the place! What I specially liked about this place was a stream that ran along the southern border of the farm. I paid the advance then and there and booked the place.

After a long and tiring wait, the farm was finally registered in Nov 2010, a good 6 months after I paid the initial advance. Such is the beauty of our agricultural land acquisition process.