The first native mango from Kerala to get a GI tag is inspiring farmers and researchers to avoid wasting extra indigenous types of the fruit
The first native mango from Kerala to get a GI tag is inspiring farmers and researchers to avoid wasting extra indigenous types of the fruit
To save a mango, you may make squash, jam and juice. Prabhakaran VO, a retired agricultural officer and Kuttiattoor mango fanatic, says they’ve launched two new merchandise with the fruit: uncooked mango powder and sun-dried mango juice (domestically often known as thera).
In September 2021, the Kuttiattoor mango which grows in abundance primarily in Kuttiattoor, a small village in Kannur district, turned the primary mango from Kerala to get a GI tag. This mango, also called ‘Nambiar maanga’, ‘Kannapuram maanga’, ‘Kunjimangalam manga’ and ‘Vadakkumbhagam manga,’ is among the State’s many scrumptious indigenous varieties.
To shield the mango cultivar and assist farmers, the Kuttiattoor Mango Producer Company was fashioned on August 18, 2016, with Prabhakaran as chairman, and with the panchayat president, residents and agricultural officers as board members. With the assist of the Agriculture Department, the corporate is offering saplings and grafts of the plant to propagate it.
“Kerala used to have nearly 100 varieties of native mangoes. Rapid urbanisation has seen many of those disappear. Efforts are now being made to popularise and propagate these regional avatars of the fruit by voluntary bodies, agriculture scientists and mango enthusiasts,” says CR Elsy, former head of the Intellectual Property Right Cell of Kerala Agricultural University.
Oral historical past has it that some 300 years in the past, mango saplings have been introduced to 2 aristocratic households in Kuttiattoor. The bushes flourished within the wealthy soil of the world. Birds and animals unfold the seed and bushes grew abundantly in a number of homes.
Raw or ripe, Kuttiattoor mangoes are a lot in demand
| Photo Credit: SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT
Prabhakaran, who labored within the space as agriculture officer, says that the native mango was taken as a right because it was widespread within the village. The fruit, a deep fiery orange when it ripens, was primarily offered within the Irikkur market, about 11 kilometres from the village. Adds Prabhakaran: “Farmers noticed that there was a great demand for the large fibrous fruit. The skin of the ripe mango has no black spots; it is a uniform golden yellow colour. Instead of the several names it was known by, we decided to call it after our village, Kuttiattoor.”
In 2016, efforts have been taken to acquire a GI standing for this mango. Elsy joined arms with farmers in Kuttiattoor on this mission. The speciality of the mango is that its saplings and grafts develop into bushes that yield fruits with the identical texture and style of the guardian plant, which isn’t the case with all mangoes.
Blossoms of the Kuttiattoor mango
| Photo Credit: SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT
One of the benefits of the fibrous fruit is that the annual crop from one tree could possibly be round two tonnes. Prabhakaran factors out {that a} family might earn ₹20,000 to ₹40,000 from one or two bushes.
However, because it was not farmed or grown commercially, most of the bushes have been minimize for the wooden. “A 75-year-old tree was cut down while our work for GI tagging was going on,” says Elsy.
Prabhakaran A, a resident of the village, says that there have been a minimum of 12 bushes that have been greater than 100 years outdated within the village. “One in Chathoth house, perhaps the oldest, was cut down. Now, there are just two or three. One is in my ancestral home. Even this year, it yielded about 400 kilograms of fruit!”
He says there may be hardly a toddler within the village who has not savoured the uncooked mango with salt. But it’s largely the ripe fruit that’s treasured by the residents. “Used as an ingredient for a chutney or to add a tangy note to a spicy fish curry, there is nothing to beat this mango.”
Prasanna Okay, a employee within the mango firm, makes use of the uncooked and ripe fruit to prepare dinner curries and chutneys. Recently she minimize the uncooked mango in tiny items, blended it with salt and solar dried it to be ship to her daughter in West Asia.
Efforts are being taken to make value-added merchandise from the mango
| Photo Credit: Special association
Dr S Simi, head of the Department of Fruit Science on the College of Agriculture in Vellayani, Thiruvananthapuram, is main a venture to acquire, retailer and save native species of the mango by making a area gene financial institution and planting seeds of regional varieties to protect them.”
Named by the land
Several wild mangoes are identified by the area they develop in, their predominant flavour, or the form of the fruit.
Native varieties consists of the Karppooram, Kappa, Kasthuri, Cheriya Kilichundan, Valiya Muthalamoopan, Panchara varikka, Kalkkanda vellari, Kuntharikam manga.
Simi did her doctoral thesis on Kerala’s native mangoes and says that fairly a number of have been misplaced within the 5 to 10 years. “Since native mangoes are cut down frequently, it is difficult to estimate how many have been lost forever. For instance, we have not got a single fruit of the Kuntharikam manga. To document the different kinds of mangoes, we depend on senior citizens who recall the varieties they had eaten in their childhood and youth. We are trying to protect what remains now,” she factors out.
Elsy says the mango cultivars such because the Chandrakaran, Moovandan and Kottoorkonam are simply a few of the varieties that may work in the direction of procuring a GI tag.
Ever because the Kuttiattoor mango acquired a GI tag, Prabhakaran feels residents have understood the worth of the mango. Orders are pouring in from close by cities and districts in Kerala. Relishing the scrumptious ripe fruit, he avers that this selection could finally develop into THE mango of Kerala.
Source: www.thehindu.com
