This Hooghly Farmer Built a Rs 30 Lakh Potato Seed Business Supporting 150 Farms |
When Subrata Karmakar was 11, he would trail behind his father across nine bigha of farmland in Beleswar Basna village in West Bengal’s Hooghly district. The soil was familiar under his feet. The routine was steady. What stayed with him most, though, was a sentence his father repeated often.
“A good farmer always produces his own seeds.”
At the time, they were growing Kufri Jyoti potatoes brought in from Punjab on four bigha of land. Subrata watched closely. He noticed how the quality of seed changed the harvest, how the yield shaped income, and how profit determined whether a season felt hopeful or strained. Those walks through the fields slowly turned into lessons about independence.
He did not know then that the same idea would shape his life decades later.
Choosing to stay with the soil
In 1998, after completing his BA degree, Subrata made a decision many graduates hesitate over. He stayed back. Farming was not a fallback. It was work he understood deeply.
The early years were full of trial and error. He grew rice, pumpkin, cucumber and gourds, testing varieties and methods across seasons. Some crops performed well. Others failed quietly. Each experiment added to his understanding of soil, timing and care. He learnt to read small signals in the field, the kind that do not appear in manuals.
In 2012, while focusing on vegetables, he heard that the West Bengal government was working towards self-sufficiency in superior quality potato seeds. The idea stirred something personal. His father had spoken about producing one’s own seeds. Now the state was pushing in the same direction.
Subrata began meeting district agricultural officers, asking questions, listening carefully. The concept of Apical Rooted Cutting, known as ARC technology, entered his vocabulary during those conversations. The goal was clear: strengthen Bengal’s own seed systems and reduce dependence on Punjab.
He felt ready to try.
His first practical experiment with ARC began in November 2023. He worked with micro plants and followed the procedure as closely as he could. The results were disappointing. Only around 40 percent........