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G. Srinivasan

Leh, Aug. 27A firm using Chinese pulp of sea buckthorn plant to produce ‘Leh Berry’ ready-to-serve health soft drink has been forced to down its shutters by local growers of this plant.

This came to light at an interactive session on sea buckthorn in Leh presided over by the Minister of State for Commerce, Mr Jairam Ramesh, who described this move of a locally registered firm as “a high altitude robbery of berry”. Mr Ramesh said such violation of trademarks should be reported to the Registrar of the trademark office and he instructed the local authorities to file a complaint fast. Sea buckthorn is a wonder plant grown wildly here and its bark, leaves and fruit are rich in bio-molecules with medicinal values. Mr Ramesh said ever since the formation of Leh and Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Councils, the locals have become vocal in the development process.

They have banded together under cooperatives to prevent such a fraud being perpetrated on them and also on consumers across the country, when the locally produced berries could not be marketed in the rest of the country, because of several operational constraints. Mr Ramesh said he had asked the Agricultural and Processed Food Products’ Export Development Authority (APEDA) to be more pro-active in providing processing, testing and further value addition to the plant so that the people would get employment and earnings.

He also urged the local authorities to take a delegation to China so as to study how the Chinese have made use of this berry as a cosmetic and pharmaceutical product and marketed them globally on a vast scale.

The APEDA Assistant General Manager, Mr Vinod Kaul, responded to the concerns of the locals and urged them to form a cluster through societies or cooperatives, which would help impart focused training in agronomic practices and also for consolidation of produce for the market, both domestic and overseas.

Production of sea buckthorn in Leh is estimatd at around 12,000 tonnes but owing to lack of appropriate harvesting practices almost 80 per cent is lost. Hence efforts would be made to make the whole operation viable for the development of this hilly region, the participants said.

Possibilities of bringing investment for development of pre- and post-harvest infrastructure were also identified as important.

More Stories on : Horticulture/Fruits & Vegetables | Other States

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