Kerala quarry owner turns farmer, grows fruits & vegetables on 7-acre plot, sells 60 products from jackfruit

Just when the future looked bleak for Vallam Sundaran, a 59-year-old resident of Neduvathoor in Kottarakara, Kollam, a handful of home-grown chillies changed his course of life. A former granite quarry owner, he has now grown an Eden of fruits and vegetables around his mining site. He is now a full-time farmer who also runs a company that sells value-added products from jackfruit.

For 10 years, Sundaran ran a granite quarry. His days were spent around machines, rocks, and dust. But everything changed when the government brought in stricter rules, and his quarry had to shut down.

“It was a time when the Kerala government became very strict about giving permits to quarries. We did not get ours, so I had to shut mine down. For a month, I didn’t know what to do.”

One day, he picked some chillies growing on his house premises and took them to a grocery store. He got ₹25 per kg. “On my way back, a friend at the Krishi Bhavan told me to sell this at the market instead. There, I got ₹100 for the same chillies,” Sundaran added. “That small instance gave me the confidence to grow more.”

The land around his old quarry was lying idle. “Over the years, the top layer of soil that was removed during quarrying was deposited on this land. After ploughing and some effort, the land was made suitable for farming.  “The quarry already had a huge quantity of water, which I was able to use for farming. Access to water is something most farmers usually struggle with.”

“One of those days, I was so busy in the field that I forgot to eat breakfast. By the time I stopped to drink some water, it was already noon,” he recalled with a smile. “That’s when I realised that farming gave me so much peace.”

Now, eight years later, Sundaran’s seven-acre land is full of life. He grows bananas, rambutan, mangosteen, guava, and over 150 jackfruit trees. He also has vegetables like chillies, brinjal, cucumber, yam, sprouts, and curry leaves. All of this is harvested twice a week and he sells it on market days.

He also started a company called Jackify, which makes nearly 60 different products using jackfruits. “Jackfruit is a zero-waste fruit,” Sundaran said. “We even use the pines to make tooth powder, the starch becomes kajal, and the white part near the seeds is used in a face pack. And of course, we cook many dishes with it too. We also take customer orders,” he added. 

But Sundaran admits the change wasn’t easy. “The quarry business had paid me well. Farming felt risky. But it made me happy in a way I had never felt before.”

He invites agricultural officers from Krishi Bhavan to his farm. “They were very encouraging as not many people did farming at a commercial level in our panchayat,” Sundaran said. 

His family supports him fully. “My wife, kids and relatives help me with farm work. They are all very involved. My daughter is studying engineering, and my son just passed Plus Two. He wants to study electronics.”

What started as a way to pass time has become a source of income and pride,  not just for him, but for others too. “I never thought I’d become a farmer,” he said. “But this life suits me. It changed everything.”