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For generations, a handful of households in Karnataka’s Tumakuru district have been closely guarding a hidden treasure. It is a jackfruit variety that yields delectable bulbs, with pleasant aroma and colours ranging from copper red to bright orange. Until a decade ago, few from outside the villages knew the whereabouts of the plants or their custodians. Once in a while, as the summer season progressed, one would come across vendors selling on the roadsides the fleshy bulbs, referred to as chandra halasu in Kannada. Even they would not reveal details about the growers. So, for Ganesan Karunakaran, principal scientist at the Indian Institute of Horticultural Research (IIHR), Bengaluru, it took a great deal of effort and years of visits to households across Tumakuru to bring the variety to the limelight. Today, the plant is being grown across Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Odisha on about 2,000 hectares. It has also emerged as an example of how biodiversity can be conserved by ensuring that communities and traditional custodians of the biological resource benefit from it.
“I had only heard about chandra halasu before joining IIHR’s Hirehalli regional station in Tumakuru. At Hirehalli, when I tasted the fruit for the first time, from a roadside vendor, I could not resist my temptation to eat more and know more about it,” he says. “There are several red jackfruit varieties in Hirehalli. But farmers were not willing to show us their trees. At best, they would offer us a fruit,” recalls Karunakaran. Their fear was that if trees are exposed, scientists would propagate the varieties, which would hamper their interest. This is when Dinesh MR, then director of IIHR floated an idea. IIHR organised a “jackfruit diversity fest” at Hirehalli. Prizes were promised for the best fruits. The fest saw a huge turnout. Farmers brought 75 jackfruits, of which 20 were red. “No one had seen so many red jackfruits at one place before,” says Dinesh. And thus began the search for the trees and a scientific study to document them and evaluate their properties. Over the next three years, the IIHR scientists with the help of jackfruit enthusiasts and non-profits, identified 125 varieties from across Tumakuru. Based on parameters like depth of colour shade, taste, crispness and nutrient profile, 10 were selected as best varieties. A tree, owned by farmer S K Siddappa from Gubbi taluk, topped the list, while another owned by Shankarayya from Tiptur taluk bagged the second position.
The next obvious step was to promote the varieties by producing grafts using scions. “But we wanted to link the biodiversity with the livelihood of farmers, who have been the custodian of the varieties. This way the varieties get popular and get conserved,” says Dinesh. In an unprecedented step, IHHR released jackfruit varieties in the names of the custodian farmers: Siddu variety was released in 2017 and Shankara variety in 2019. IIHR also signed MoUs (memoranda of understanding) with the custodian farmers under which the farmers received 75 per cent of the proceeds from the graft sales. The varieties were also registered under the Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers’ Rights Authority (PPV and FRA) to ensure that no one else can propagate and sell the variety.
Over the years, Siddappa’s son Paramesh and Shankarayya’s son Kemparaj have learnt grafting techniques, and have set up their own nurseries. Paramesh, who has so far received a royalty of Rs 40 lakh from IIHR, says that every year he develops around 25,000 saplings, which he sells for Rs 250 each. “Initially, I used to sell the plants at fests. But with the fruit’s growing popularity, I receive orders from across the country. So we have tied up with a courier company for safe transportation of the saplings in a customised carton box,” says Paramesh. “Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that our jackfruit tree would bring such prosperity to us. I now offer employment to 15 families from the village,” he says. Kemparaj, who has received Rs 18 lakh in royalty from IIHR so far, plans to buy 0.8 ha land to expand his nursery and set up a scion bank.
In 2014-15, two scientists from the state, Sampath Kumar KK from Government First Grade College, Devanagere, and Bharathi TR from University of Mysore, Mysuru, assessed the nutritional value of the fruit. “The orange-flake jackfruits have more phenols and flavanoids as compared to the yellow ones. This means the antioxidant activity is more in the former,” the scientists write in the report. Grafting expert Gururaja Balthillaya of Athradi village in Udupi district says the main attraction of the fruit is its colour. “It has a sort of addiction value. Though less sweet when compared with the yellow jackfruit, one feels like eating more,” he adds.
Shashibhushan Choudhary, chief of National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources, Ranchi, has been studying the fruit for the past five years and is impressed by its genetic wealth. “Till recently, we thought 26 brix is the highest in this category. [Brix is a measure of sugar value; higher brix value indicates better pest and disease resistant ability of the crop.] Of late, we have a variety with 31 brix. When compared with the gene pool of India’s jackfruit varieties, red fruits are not reported from north or northeast India,” Choudhary says. Trilochan Mohapatra, chair of PPV and FRA, says his organisation has recently registered 16 farmer varieties of jackfruit, 11 of which are red-flaked.
Whether for its exotic value, nutritional content, colour or taste, the demand for red jackfruits, both the saplings and bulbs, have grown multifold in the past few years. The fruits command a price that is twice or thrice of the regular yellow jackfruit.
K S Ashok Kumar, a farmer from Doddaballapur taluk in Bangalore Rural district, has shifted to dryland horticulture a decade ago due to fast depleting groundwater level in the region.
He now grows different jackfruit varieties, including Siddu and Shankara, on 20 ha. Kumar is, however, not happy with the marketing system of jackfruit. “Whole fruits have a shelf life of a few days. But most consumers like to buy peeled bulbs, which have limited shelf life. Farmer-producer companies or supermarket chains should devise ways so that the bulbs can be preserved and sold in packets,” he says. Choudhary also suggests creating reliable supply chains for the fruit so that both farmers and consumers can benefit.
(Shree Padre is editor of Adike Patrike, a Kannada farm magazine)
This was first published in the 16-30 September, 2024 print edition of Down To Earth