Shree Padre's Jackfruit Paradise - Panruti breaks all records

Article Courtesy: Civil Society

JACKFRUIT or kathal is India’s most neglected fruit. Except in Panruti. This sleepy coastal taluk in Cuddalore district of Tamil Nadu is the heaven of jackfruit. It produces the best jackfruits in the country – fat, sweet and tasty. You can buy the fruit round the year.

K Karunakaran in his 6.5 acre orchard which inspired other farmers to raise jackfruit orchards

The biggest jackfruit in Panruti weighs over 70 kg which actually makes it a hot contender for the Guinness Book of Records. A Hawaiian jackfruit, at a mere 34 kg holds the title at present. By not staking a claim, Panruti is depriving itself of a world record title every year.

Now this is one competition India could win hands down.

But even if the record has not been bestowed on them, Panruti's farmers are not complaining. Hundreds of them are thriving by growing kathal. Plantations, starting from one acre to 10 and even 20, are aplenty.

In these days of labour scarcity, Panruti jackfruit growers are gleeful. They don’t need armies of labourers. Jackfruit is seen as a zero attention plant and harvest crop. Even so in Panruti, the jackfruit is pampered with manure and irrigation. The market is controlled by middlemen, yet farmers get a price not dreamed of!

Panruti probably has the highest per capita consumption of jackfruit in India. Everyone here loves jackfruit. From sunrise to sunset you can see people carrying the palaa palam (as the jackfruit is locally called) on their heads, on bullock carts, two-wheelers, buses and cars.

The inferiority complex attached to growing jackfruit in Karnataka and Kerala is refreshingly absent. Recalls a local elder: “So far I haven’t come across anyone who dislikes palaa palam.” As evidence you can take a look at the Panruti bus-stand. Sixty to 70 people earn a living by selling ready to eat jackfruit carpel.

Of course, countries like Vietnam and Malaysia, which have excelled in value addition and marketing, have sprawling jackfruit orchards. But in India, jackfruit is mostly pushed aside, relegated to corners or as a scattered border crop around farmers’ fields.

Big farmers

K Karunakaran of Maligampatt village has a 6.5 acre orchard with jackfruit trees that were all planted at the same time 20 years ago. He was perhaps the first farmer to put his faith in jackfruit. He irrigates his trees once a fortnight. Though he harvested and took the fruits to the mandi himself last year, he made only Rs 3 lakh. This year he hopes to make Rs 5 lakh. “I’m satisfied,” he says proudly. “My orchard is a model for farmers in 15 villages. Many have copied my orchard. But before me nobody dared to plant jackfruit on so much land.”

About 80 per cent of farmers prefer selling their jackfruits to middlemen. Though they get less money, the middleman or contractor shoulders responsibilities like irrigation – if the facility exists – manuring, spraying and harvesting.

Parthasarathy, also from Maligampatt, is an example. He is happy selling to a middleman. His 12 acre jackfruit orchard earned him Rs 3 lakh last year. This year, it fetched him Rs 5 lakh. Recently, he sold two trees, a century old, for Rs 1 lakh each. He has 20 to 30 trees that are unusual. They either yield fruits through the year or bear fruits twice a year.

Though jackfruit cultivation is many centuries old, large-scale plantations probably began just a few decades ago. According to the horticulture department here, the area under jackfruit cultivation is 1,084 hectares. Around 50 per cent are big orchards. At an estimated yield of 40 tonnes per hectare, the total revenue farmers earn is Rs 17.34 crore.

The Vegetable Research Station, Palur, which is under the Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (TNAU), is just 10 km from Panruti town. Two of their released jack selections, Palur1 and Palur 2, are popular. However, Panruti farmers don’t have a preference for grafts. They fear that grafts won’t produce premium timber as compared to seedlings.

“For the farmers, jack timber is like gold,” explains P Haridoss, assistant director, agriculture, Panruti. “Whenever they require money urgently, they sell a tree or two.” To protect the plants from cattle and goats, a thorny fence is erected. Side branches are nipped off till the plant attains a height of six to seven feet to get a straight and stout trunk.

A simple technique called thinning produces bigger fruits. At a tender stage, excessive fruits are cut off allowing only selected ones to grow. The formula followed is to retain two fruits per age of the tree. Consequently, only average sized and big fruits flow into the market. You won't see fruits smaller than 15 kg in the market.

Most farmers or contractors apply fertilizers. Fruit rot, a fungal disease and Spittle bug attack are two problems which plague jackfruit and require pesticides. Some orchards are sprayed five or seven times. Due to ignorance, highly toxic insecticides that have created health problems elsewhere are also used in some of the gardens.

This jumbo jackfruit weighs 61 kg and sell for a fancy price of Rs. 1760

Advantage Panruti

What makes Panruti jackfruits so special? The carpels are thick, long and extra sweet. Being a low rainfall area – Panruti gets 1,500 mm of rain – the total soluble sugars of the fruits are high. Most jackfruits here have outstanding taste. According to locals, jackfruits from nearby Cuddalore or Chidambaram are no match for Panruti jackfruits. “This is because of soil conditions and climate. Our dry weather lasts six long months,” says Haridoss.

Irrigation increases productivity by around 50 per cent. Its downside is that it decreases taste slightly. If there are rains in between, the taste of the fruit gets affected. Fruits from rain-fed trees are sweeter. Dr R Vaidyanathan, Head, Palur Vegetable Research Station, TNAU, says, “Even 50 mm of rainfall is sufficient to dilute the sucrose levels of jackfruit.”

The jackfruit season here is from December to June. Wholesale markets or mandis are the nerve centres of trade. The wholesale rate is quoted on per tonne basis. It ranges from Rs 6,000 to Rs 12,000. From April to May, as the arrival graph goes up, the price hovers at around Rs 8,000.

CR Mayavelu, owner of a mandi, recalls that the average price of one jackfruit was Rs 20 when he started 15 years ago. Now it is Rs 150. Ten years ago, there were only five mandis. Now there are 17.

During the peak season five lorry loads are sent every day. Mayavelu, the biggest mandi owner, sends about 650 loads a year. Out of this, 150 loads go to Mumbai, the rest to Bangalore and different cities of Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu.

The Mumbai market opened up five or six years ago. Now Mumbai is their biggest buyer. “Mumbai customers know Panruti jackfruit,” says Manikumar, a Mumbai wholesale dealer. “Carpels here are sweeter and bigger. Ninety per cent of these fruits are later sold loose. The price is Rs 100 for a kg of peeled carpels. But recently the taste has come down, may be due to use of fertilizers.”

After thinning, farmers get between Rs 50 to Rs 75 for each fruit sold to middlemen. This price doubles in the mandi. By the time the fruit reaches Chennai or Mumbai, its price increases four-fold. A few farmers send fruits as ‘part load’ on lorries to Chennai’s wholesale market. They get double the Panruti rate, but have to cough up a fat 15 per cent commission.

Apart from mandis, hundreds of roadside shops sell jackfruit. These are located at Panruti and in Kadampuliyoor, 6 km away from the town. These shops are run by women. They sell in retail and also as carpels. Valli Subramanian, a shopkeeper at Kadampuliyoor, has been selling jackfruit for 15 years. She sells jackfruit through the year. During the off-season the price doubles.

Jumbo-sized jackfruit are a big attraction. Occasionally, a jackfruit weighing over 50 kg arrives at the market. A Kodai festival held every year on Cuddalore beach displayed fruits that weighed around 70 to 100 kg, recalls Haridoss.

A jumbo jackfruit in one of the mandis required two persons to lift it. The owner said he would sell that 61 kg wonder for, lo and behold, a fancy price of Rs 1,750. Such fruits are bought more for their seeds than for cooking.

Panruti jackfruit hasn’t witnessed any major market collapse or production crisis so far. Another notable point is that unlike in other areas, jackfruit doesn’t get wasted here. As such, efforts for value addition are the least.

One big advantage for Panruti is that two highways, the Chennai- Kumbhakonam state highway and the Chennai-Villupuram-Tiruchirapally national highway pass through this taluk, thereby offering good marketing opportunities for jackfruit.

Click here to read the entire article