This Man is the ROSE King Exporting More Than 700 Millions Stems to Foreign Countries

One-acre farmer turns ‘ROSE KING'

Karuturi Surya Rao

Karuturi Surya Rao's success story in floriculture shows how initiative can help one rise to great heights.

ELURU: The success story of Karuturi Surya Rao in floriculture offers a lesson or two for farmers in the country, a dejected lot who found themselves at the ‘altar' of agriculture after liberalisation. 

Hailing from a non-descript delta village of Morta, near Tanuku in West Godavari district, he has created a niche for himself in the world of roses with the buds raised in his estates in India, Ethiopia and Kenya becoming most sought-after among rose-lovers in Asia, Australia, Middle East, Europe and North America.

Life, however, was not a bed of roses for the 78-year old ‘rose king'. Born in a small peasant family with no land to till, he migrated to Hospet in Karnataka.

 “I inherited only one acre of land from my ancestors which failed to satiate my appetite for agriculture. 

I sold it and purchased lands in Karnataka with that money which turned out to be a breaking point in my life,” recalls Mr. Rao who was here on a private assignment recently.

Moves to Kenya

The initial drawback in rose farming in suburban Karnataka failed to dampen his spirit.

He asked his son Sairamakrishna to undertake a study tour in Australia on floriculture. 

When it was found that the Indian rose's drawback in the world market was its small size, he moved to Kenya and later to Ethiopia for rose farming. 

Mr Rao's Karuturi Global Limited today owns 75 ha of land in Ethiopia, producing 115 million stems for export to Europe and the Middle East.

Besides, in Kenya it has 154 ha producing 422 million export-only stems for Europe.

“A one-acre ryot once, my father is today able to command a credit up to Rs 1,200 crore from different financial institutions, all due to his credibility,” says Mr Sairamakrishna, an MBA, who quit his cozy job in the US following a call from his father to follow him.

Source : http://www.thehindu.com/