NAME: Manavdeep Singh

Roll No: 264/2017

Entrepreneurship Idea

HYDROPONICS IN INDIA
Entrepreneurship is often described as the process of designing, launching and running a new
business with a motive of bringing a change in the society and earning profit out of that venture.
It is a process by which either an individual or team identifies a business opportunity and acquires
and deploys the necessary resources required for exploitation. It is often cited that entrepreneurs
are risk takers and are creative thinkers. A successful idea does not really need a genuine mind.
Rather it requires an open mind which observes its surrounding thoroughly. Following is my idea
as being an entrepreneur.

As the title suggests, my idea of being an entrepreneur is “Hydroponics in India”. Hydroponics is

a subset of hydroculture, which is a method of growing plants without soil by using mineral
nutrient solutions in a water solvent. There are two techniques of hydroponics and each of them is
discussed in this paper.

I belong to a family where farming is the source of income. We generally do contract-based

farming with Frito-Lays (the maker of Lays). Harvesting such crops require huge amount of area
and time, resulting in harvesting limited crops in a season. It increases our dependency on one
crop. Also, agriculture being the most uncertain occupation makes no sense on relying on one crop.
So, there must be an alternative to this. That is how I got the idea of Hydroponics in India.
Additionally, the deterioration of soil and reduced water levels makes it more viable to shift from
traditional farming to hydroponics for some crops.

About Hydroponics

Static Solution culture: In this, plants are grown in containers nutrient solution, such as glass
mason jars, plastic buckets, tubs or tanks. The solution can be either aerated or un-aerated. If the
solution is un-aerated, then the solution is kept low enough that enough roots are above the solution
to get the oxygen. A hole is cut in the lid of the reservior for each plant. A single reservior can be
dedicated to a single plant or to various plants. Clear containers are covered with aluminum foil,
black plastic or other material to exclude light.

Continuous-flow solution culture: in this, the nutrient solution constantly flows past the roots. It
is much easier to automate than the static solution culture because sampling and adjustments to
the temperature and concentrations can be made in a large storage tank that has potential to serve
thousands of plants.

A few of the benefits of hydroponics include:

 The ability to produce higher yields than traditional, soil-based agriculture.

 Allowing food to be grown and consumed in areas of the world that cannot support crops
in the soil.
 Eliminating the excessive use of pesticides, effectively making our air, water, soil and food
cleaner.

Why grow things hydroponically?

Although the benefits of hydroponics have sometimes been questioned, there seem to be many
advantages as well. Following are some of the advantages of hydroponics:

 Like greenhouse, hydroponic growers can have control over the climate- temperature,
humidity and light intensification, the composition of the air. In this sense, we can grow
foods all year round regardless of the season. Farmers can produce foods at the appropriate
time to maximize their business profits.
 Plants grown hydroponically can use only 10% of water compared to field grown ones. In
this method, water is recirculated. Water loss only occurs in two forms, evaporation and
leaks from the system.
 Less use of insecticides and herbicides. Since, we are not using soil and while the weeds,
pests and plant diseases are heavily reduced, there are fewer chemicals used. This is helpful
for the health.
  Besides spending fewer works on tilling, watering, cultivating we can enjoy the time saved
because plants growth in hydroponics is proven to be in hydroponics.
 The stress levels that are generally present in traditional agriculture are reduced because
you are immune to the unfavourable weather changes.

Key Considerations:

After talking about the feasibility of the idea, we shall look at the limitations of the idea as well.
Following are some of considerations that shall be kept in mind:

 Hydroponics requires extensive commitment and time for learning the process and
maintaining the crops. Plants will die out more quickly without proper care and adequate
knowledge.
 This process requires initial huge investment and technical knowledge as well. Costs have
to be incurred to set up the project and learn it. It is sometimes difficult for traditional
farmers to let go the old ways of farming and learn new technique. They are reluctant to
learn such things.
 We are growing crops in a closed system using water. In case of plant infectious or pests,
they can escalate fast to plants on the same nutrient reservior. Requirement of electricity is
huge in such plants.

Startup costs for an indoor hydroponic farm:

These costs are dummy costs taken from the internet.

Here are how the numbers are stacking up:

 Footprint: 500 square feet

 Initial cost for the Tiwana Farm: $110k (not including upgrades to the facility)

The costs shown here include all the components for an indoor vertical farm with automated
nutrient dosing and high efficiency LED lighting.

Included in this bundle:

 192 ZipGrow Towers

 15 ZipGrow Racks for supporting the Towers
  48 Lighting Units
 2 Light Racks for supporting the lights
 1 - 330 Gallon Nutrient reservoir, with UV filtration and automated nutrient management.
 1 CO2 injection

Lighting costs represent the highest ongoing expense for the Tiwana Farm.
In the example shown here, we are using 48 LED lighting units, each running at 355 watts.

 48 lighting units
 355 watts each to operate
 18 hours of daily lighting
 Total = 306.72 kWh daily
In 2016, the national average for commercial energy was 10.37c/kWh. Residential energy rates
averaged 12.56c/kWh.
This means that our daily cost for electricity is $31.80 (commercial) and $38.52 (residential).

 306.72 kWh x $0.1037/kWh = $31.80 daily

 306.72 kWh x $0.1256/kWh = $38.52 daily

Final Takeaways:

After discussing the above points, it is evident that hydroponics is a profitable business. It is
at its premature stage which gives us a fine sweet untapped spot to enter the market.
Agriculture will remain to dominate the Indian market and it will become impossible to meet
the demand with the traditional ways of agriculture.