During April 2011, a few farmers from a Dakshina Kannada village met to taste and select best varieties of jackfruits in their surroundings.

The farmers brought 35 varieties of jackfruits from a radius of 15 km of Muliya village in Bantwal taluk. Of these, five varieties were selected as the best ones in the ‘taste-and-select’ meet at farmer Venkatakrishna Sharma’s house in Muliya village.

These farmers called themselves as ‘Halasu Snehi Koota’ (a group of jackfruit friends). Those varieties selected in that meet were sent for grafting.

Shree Padre, who has been working on creating awareness about jackfruit cultivation, told Business Line that probably for the first time such a thing to select best varieties in jackfruit was done at farmers’ level.

Venkatakrishna Sharma, the farmer who is the main force behind the group, said that such meetings at Muliya and two other places led to select around 15 best varieties. Already farmers have planted around 5,000 grafted saplings from these varieties, he said.

Each variety has its own characteristics. While some may be suited for eating, others may be good raw materials for the preparation of chips, pappads, etc., he said. In fact, the members are also supplying jackfruits to an ice cream manufacturer in Mumbai.

Varanashi Krishnamoorthy, Managing Trustee of Varanashi Research Foundation at Adyanadka village in the district, said that Raghunandan Kamath of the Mumbai-based Natural Ice Creams had attended one such taste-and-select meets. He sought the farmers’ help to supply around 25 tonnes of jackfruit that year. (The foundation works in the areas of improvement to agriculture and allied fields.)

> vinayak.aj@thehindu.co.in

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