No soil, no farm: Nagpur couple turns 400 sq ft room into ₹4-lakh-a-month saffron business

A Nagpur couple has turned a 400-square-foot room into a high-value saffron business, earning more than ₹4 lakh a month by cultivating the spice indoors without soil. Akshay Holey and Divya Lohakare Holey use aeroponic technology to grow saffron in Hingna, despite Nagpur’s hot climate.

Their venture now generates an annual revenue of ₹40–50 lakh, with their saffron selling at about ₹630 per gram—roughly ₹6.3 lakh per kg, The Times of India reported.

Akshay, a BBA graduate, and Divya, who earlier worked in banking, began exploring saffron cultivation in 2020. They saw an opportunity in the gap between India’s steady demand for saffron and its limited domestic production.

To learn the crop’s requirements, the couple travelled to Kashmir and spent about three and a half months over two years with experienced growers. Their first experiment used only 100 saffron corms, weighing about 1 kg, and produced just a few grams of saffron.

“We started with a very small experiment, but we kept refining the process,” Akshay said, according to the report. The couple later invested in 350 kg of corms, which yielded about 1,600 grams of saffron and encouraged them to scale up.

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Saffron is conventionally associated with Kashmir’s cold climate, but the couple recreated the required conditions indoors. Their facility controls temperature, humidity and light, while aeroponics delivers moisture and nutrients to plant roots through a misting system rather than soil.

The method removes the need for conventional fertilisers and allows cultivation despite Nagpur’s extreme summer heat. The couple also uses solar power to reduce electricity costs and handles much of the work themselves, keeping operating expenses low.

Saffron is harvested between August and December; the remaining months are used to grow and maintain corms for the next cycle.

The business’s saffron is graded by the Saffron Institute of Kashmir and sold at approximately ₹630 per gram. Akshay estimates that the operation delivers a profit margin of about 80 per cent.

According to him, a 100-square-foot unit can be set up for around ₹10 lakh and produce saffron worth about ₹5 lakh annually. The machinery, he said, can last 20–25 years, making it a long-term investment.

The couple invested about ₹55 lakh initially and has earned approximately ₹1.3 crore over five years, with much of the return coming in the past two years.

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The couple has expanded beyond production into training and market linkage. They charge ₹15,000 for a training programme and have trained around 150 people so far; 29 have established their own saffron-growing units across Maharashtra.

They also purchase saffron from partner growers and manage its packaging and marketing, allowing smaller producers to focus on cultivation.

Combined output from their own facilities and partner units reportedly reached 45 kg last year.