ANISHA FRANCIS
anisha@herald-goa.com
MARGAO: Yuvraj Naik from Kundaim is an extremely busy man – his phone constantly buzzes with customer queries and bookings and he single-handedly handles a core team of 19 young men – an impressive feat, considering his was a business started on an impulse, born purely out of frustration, and necessity.
Yuvraj says he had never planned to start a coconut-harvesting business. “Nine years ago, I was into a different business, supplying packaged mineral water,” he recalls. Part of a large and close-knit family that owns ancestral coconut plantations, it was often Yuvraj’s responsibility to see that their coconuts were plucked on time. This was easier said than done. “I would call and schedule a date and time for the coconut pluckers to visit, but they would often not turn up. I would get very angry, waiting endlessly for the workers as the entire coconut crop is at risk if not harvested in time,” he explains. After one too many no-shows, Yuvraj decided to take matters into his own hands. “Tired of getting worked up over something I cannot control, I decided to do it myself. I realised many cultivators like me are facing the same problem and decided to offer this service on a small scale, initially,” he recalls.
With the number of coconut pluckers steadily declining in Goa, the age-old profession has faced a significant crisis, he points out. Younger generations of Goans are unwilling to take up this physically demanding and less lucrative vocation, leaving most villages with only one or two resident pluckers, if any.
Hiring just one plucker from Tamil Nadu initially, Yuvraj quickly had to scale up his venture, due to the demand for his services.
Today, he manages a team of 19 skilled pluckers from Jharkhand, a State known for its expertise in coconut plucking and tree pruning. To ensure their well-being, he provides food, accommodation, and the harness and equipment they use to safely scale the coconut trees – even though his sprightly young workers could scamper up without the harness. “I now have three vans to ferry the teams to plantations even as far as Sindhudurg in Maharashtra and parts of Karnataka,” says Yuvraj. He has also trained them, enabling the team to take on additional tasks, such as plucking arecanut. “We only get two months’ rest in a year – we suspend our operations in June and July, when there are heavy rains. During the remaining 10 months, we are busy every day,” says Yuvraj, who also hires freelancers and part-timers whenever necessary, bringing the strength of his team up to 30 during the busiest months. The business is now a well-oiled machine. “I accompany my workers when we first take on a new customer and once I’m sure they are well-acquainted and comfortable with my team, they handle the job on their own- I only work out the schedule and logistics, he says.
Interestingly, coconut plucking was part of Yuvraj’s ancestral business, but after graduation, he showed no interest in continuing the trade. “It was my friend Prashant Chari who guided me and encouraged me to pursue this,” he shares.
Looking to the future, Yuvraj plans to venture into cultivating medicinal plants, further diversifying his enterprise. “There’s so much potential in this field. I want to continue supporting farmers and cultivators while growing my business,” he says. For now, Yuvraj is content knowing that he has built something meaningful, providing a vital service that many in the region rely on.