Farmer's Notebook: There is value-addition potential in jackfruit

Be it a fruit crop or any other food crop, it must offer possibilities of making new products from it.

By doing so, the income of the farmers can be considerably raised.

“Take the example of the jackfruit. One finds it almost in any place in southern parts of India. The fruit is available in large quantities during season and can be effectively processed into many value added products,” says Dr. K. Narayana Gowda, Vice Chancellor, University of Agricultural Sciences, GKVK, Bangalore.

Supplementary crop

Though till now, the fruit was only grown in marginal areas, wastelands and backyards, “the development of rural processing industry may turn it into a commercial crop that can be grown more extensively as a supplementary tree crop,” says Dr. B. Ranganna, Emeritus scientist and former head, Division of Agricultural Engineering Sciences.

And adds: “As scientists, we hope that growers and entrepreneurs would take note of the immense potential of the fruit and work towards exploiting it for generating higher income.”

Short shelf life

In general, the fresh deseeded sweet bulbs are consumed as such by the people and the bulbs cannot keep it for long time because of high perishability and as a result there are huge post harvest losses (30 – 35 per cent) occuring during the season and also the usefulness of the seeds and rind is not known to the growers and consumers.

Several products

Researchers at the Post Harvest Technology Scheme, at the University have developed several value-added products from jackfruit bulbs, seeds and the rind.

“Many value added products like halwa, finger chips, ready-to-serve (RTS) beverage, candy bar, papad, dehydrated flakes, wine, vinegar, dairy based products like srikhand, kulfi, ice-cream and bulb flour have been prepared by the department of post harvest technology department.

“Several bakery products such as biscuits, muffins masala vada, flour and chapathi were developed from the seed. The rind is also a very good source of pectin which was extracted from it. Also, pickle was developed from the rind,” explains Dr. Ranganna.

Commercial production

The process protocols of these products have been standardized for commercial production and promotion at the University research station.

“Apart from the above products our team has for the first time made wine from the fruit. The wine has been developed by processing deseeded bulbs through microbial fermentation.

Huge demand

“The developed wine is slightly yellowish in colour, acidic in taste and low in alcohol content. There is a huge demand from consumers for this wine due to its special taste and aroma,” says Prof. K.B. Munishamanna.

The University has been working on the popularisation and promotion of the developed jack products by organising series of special training programmes, demonstrating in krishimelas organised in the states of Karnataka and Kerala.

Further it also organised a National level seminar on ‘Jackfruit and its value added products’ in Bangalore during May 2010.

Proposal

“We have also submitted a proposal to the Department of Biotechnology, GoI, New Delhi, to fund for promoting thie value addition technology in the North Eastern States since, jack is widely grown in those states and are eagerly awaiting for entrepreneurs to visit us and buy the technologies,” sums up Dr. Ranganna.

For more information and training readers can contact Dr. B. Ranganna at rangannab@gmail.com at the Post Harvest Technology Scheme (ICAR), University of Agricultural Sciences, GKVK, Bangalore 560 065.

Phone: 080-23330153 ; extn 345 or

Prof. K.B. Munishamanna, at telephone 080-23330153 : Extn 346.

(The article appeared in The Hindu edition dated Thursday, August 11, 2011.)

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