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Steps will be taken to set up jackfruit development clusters in rural Dakshina Kannada, according to an official.
Inaugurating a jackfruit festival, organised by the Krishi Vijnan Kendra in Mangalore on Friday, K.N. Vijayaprakash, Chief Executive Officer of Dakshina Kannada Zilla Panchayat, said that jackfruit is grown on 838 hectares of land in Dakshina Kannada district.
As of now, farmers have taken up the cultivation of jackfruits on six hectares of land at Adyanadka in the district under the jackfruit cluster scheme of the Government.
Stressing the need for developing more jackfruit clusters in rural areas, he said the Government is planning to set up around 10 jackfruit clusters in the district during 2013-14.
Added to this, the Dakshina Kannada Zilla Panchayat will ask all the schools and hostels in the district to plant jackfruit saplings on their premises, he said.
Varanashi Krishnamoorthy, a progressive farmer from Adyanadka, said that a group of farmers from his village sent around 27 tonnes of jackfruit an ice cream manufacturer in Mumbai last year.
Added to this, these farmers have also sold around 16 tonnes of jackfruits to the manufacturers of chips and pappads in the district.
Though the farmers in Adyanadka have set up a jackfruit cluster with financial assistance from the State Government, there is a need to provide timely financial assistance to farmers to carry out their operations in this regard, he said.
Giving details of jackfruit cultivation in his farm, Krishnamoorthy said he has planted saplings of 70 different varieties of jackfruits in his farm. Most of them were sourced from the ‘taste-and-select’ meets conducted by farmers in his region in the last two years, he said.
D.C. Chowta, another progressive farmer from Meeyapadav in Kasaragod district of Kerala, said that many varieties of jackfruits that they tasted decades ago are not seen now. In such a situation, there is a need to conserve such varieties, he said.
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