The Promised Land

Bengaluru-based Hosachiguru manages about 900 acres of farmland for its clients and looks to raise yield through sustainable practices.

- Manu Balachandran

Long before he became a champion of sustainable farming, Srinath Setty was dabbling in the lucrative commercial real estate business in Bengaluru. Along with his cousins, the 37-yearold had developed a 160-apartment complex on Bannerghatta Road while also being engaged as a consultant.

“But what I do now is more satisfying,” says the engineer. “It has allowed me to do something that I always wanted to do, but couldn’t since scaling up was going to be difficult.” Srinath comes from a family of farmers in Karnataka and had cultivated papaya and pomegranate on his farmland before realising that the business couldn’t be scaled up due to shortage of land.

Today, Srinath, his uncle Ashok and Sriram Chitlur, a former colleague of Ashok, are part of the core team that runs Bengaluru-based Hosachiguru, an agricultural asset management startup that runs 19 sustainable projects on 900 acres, nearly twice the size of Monaco. By 2020, the company intends to increase the land bank to over 1,400 acres.

Hosachiguru, which means new sprout in Kannada, is a five-year-old company that acquires farmland and manages existing ones. “We don’t promise any particular returns on investment. But you are investing in land, in trees that yield a good return in future and that’s something our customers have faith in,” says Srinath. Of the 19 projects that the company runs, three are in horticulture, while the remaining are for timber.

Hosachiguru was started by Ashok and Sriram in 2008. While they were disillusioned with the monotony of their IT jobs, the two had one more reason to foray into farming. “Ashok is fond of Mysore Sandal soap,” says Srinath. “At that time there was a shortage of sandalwood and the soap was not available anywhere. That’s when he realised they must try and farm sandalwood themselves.”