With Strawberries from Bhagalpur…

Bhagalpur: according to reports, quite incredibly, strawberry cultivation is making news in Bihar! ‘Strawberries, like grapes or potatoes, were originally temperate zone crops. But we now have varieties that can grow in the plains,” said Harishchandra Singh, the deputy director-general of horticulture of Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), New Delhi. “We have grapes in Maharashtra and potato in Tamil Nadu —- so why not strawberry in Haryana or Bihar?” said Singh, who had during the early-1980s demonstrated the production of strawberry in Ranchi.

Amit Kumar, a farmer who has taken to strawberry farming, has an interesting story to narrate. “I purchased strawberry at Rs 1,200 per kg during my visit to New Delhi in 2010. Last year, I was surprised to enjoy the taste of strawberry at Bihar Agriculture University (BAU), Sabour, at a comparatively low price — only Rs 100 per kg. Moreover, the fruits here were fresher than those in Delhi,” he said. Several farmers residing near BAU are reaping the delights of strawberry in their fields.

The home-grown strawberry is sold in local markets between Rs 350 and Rs 425 per kg. Deepak Verma of Sabour started cultivating strawberry with rice and wheat taking into consideration the profit factor. Some farmers have jacked up their profit thrice in the past few years by growing strawberry besides traditional crops like rice, wheat and vegetables. “It is a cash crop for us. With the support from the BAU, we can easily earn a huge profit growing strawberry,” said Verma. Ambika Yadav, another farmer, claimed that he earned a profit of over Rs 35,000 growing strawberry. Vegetables earned him a profit of hardly Rs 12,000.

The fruit is being cultivated around Bhagalpur because of BAU’s efforts where scientists have successfully developed the variety of strawberry plants that can grow in the local soil and weather conditions. Rabui Rani, a junior scientist at the department of horticulture at the BAU and the principal investigator of the strawberry project, said the varsity first started cultivating sweet Charlie, camaroas, winter dawn, festival and florina varieties in 2010. Rani said like all the other varieties, sweet Charlie and festival were also developed from runner of plants. She said the taste and the quality of the strawberries produced at Bhagalpur was same as those produced in other states having favourable climate and soil conditions in comparison to Bhagalpur.

The junior scientist said the strawberry cultivation season in Bhagalpur was from October to February. The plantation should be done in the first week of October and fruits start reaping from end-January. According to her, a farmer can produce 20-25 tonnes of strawberry on one hectare of land. Vice-chancellor Choudhary said over 70,000 saplings developed from plant runner were sold to farmers for Rs 50 each in October-November 2011 and will be made available to farmers at a nominal price in the next season also.

But ICAR’s Singh cautions that strawberry needs special care after harvesting. “It is a perishable fruit that needs to be protected from heat after harvesting — and if there is saturation because many farmers are cultivating it, there could be a price crash,” Singh told the press. Once again thus, the farmers face the problem of lack of cold chain facilities in the state without which strawberry farming cannot really become sufficiently widespread even though it happens to be a winter crop.

[courtesy: The Telegraph]