Kodagu, Karnataka
Nine years ago, Madetira Thimmaiah thought enough was enough. And it was time for him to break free. Fourteen years of hectic corporate life had started to make him feel like a machine. He longed to ‘live’ life and connect with nature.
Boom, and he kicked his corporate banking job and turned into a coffee cultivator and has been successfully cultivating coffee for the past nine years scripting success as a farmer.
43-year-old Thimmaiah’s journey from boardrooms of banking institutes in Bengaluru, Mysuru and Mangaluru to his 45 hectares of coffee plantation in Kodagu, Karnataka, can inspire many who wish to change the course of their lives.
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“I was doing a fine job at insurance and banking firms in cities like Bangalore, Mysore and Mangalore but the corporate culture made me sick and after 14 years of working in it, I wished to get out,” Thimmaiah told Gaon Connection.
He informed that he started cultivating coffee on 3.5 hectares of land in Kodagu but in the last nine years, his acreage has increased to 45 hectares. Also, his enterprise generates employment. “I started off with five-six labourers but now I employ as many as fifty workers on my plantations,” he said.
“Coffee cultivation attracted me. In the last nine years, I conducted a series of experiments that helped me come up with superior quality of coffee which is now being supplied to some of the biggest companies in this trade,” he added.
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Talking about the reactions of his friends and relatives when he switched to cultivation, Thimmaiah said – “My family didn’t like the idea of me switching to cultivation, my friends also found it to be a rash decision. But I was resolute.”
Initially, Thimmaiah earned Rs 200,000 -Rs 300,000 per month. But after nine years of cultivating coffee and experimenting with his yield, he makes around Rs 3.5 million to Rs 4 million a month.
He informed Gaon Connection that the coffee is planted before the arrival of the monsoons or immediately after the conclusion of the monsoon season. A coffee plant produces seeds after two to three years and if maintained well, the same plant can produce seeds for about 20-30 years.
“The coffee that we grow, ‘shade green’ variety grows exclusively in Karnataka’s Coorg and Chikmagalur. It is found nowhere else in the world. The produce is of export quality and we cultivate it arabica and robusta varieties,” he told Gaon Connection.
