Karnataka: In 10 years, ragi balls and jolada rotti may vanish!
Traditional crops like ragi, rabi jowar and paddy are slowly vanishing
Bengaluru: Ragi mudde (ragi balls) and Jolad Rotti (Jowar roti), the staple food of south Karnataka and North Karnataka and so familiar to Bengalureans, may vanish from our plates in ten years from now due to the shrinking area of cultivation in Karnataka.
If that happens, people can only read about these delicacies in textbooks. “In the last one decade, the area of cultivation of ragi and jowar has declined by 50,000 to 60,000 hectares. The two crops are grown in 10 lakh hectares across the state. It’s really a dangerous trend which requires the immediate attention of the state government,” remarked Mr T.N. Prakash Kammardi, chairman, Karnataka Agriculture Price Commission.
He told Deccan Chronicle that the commission was set up by the government to study major agriculture and horticulture crops, cropping pattern, marketing and the demand-supply chain. It has completed the study of changes in crop pattern area-wise.
“To our surprise, we found that there has been increase in cultivation of hybrid maize, BT cotton, sugarcane and arecanut whereas traditional crops like ragi, rabi jowar and paddy are slowly vanishing.”
Mr Kammardi said the government which distributes around three lakh tonnes of rice free of cost to one crore plus Below Poverty Line (BPL) card holders under the Anna Bhagya scheme, should consider distributing a good quantity of ragi and jowar that have high nutrition value compared to rice. Thanks to the commission’s recommendation, the government has started procurement of ragi and jowar by offering good prices to farmers. This initiative had propelled the prices of both those two items in the market. A workshop on promoting the cultivation of ragi and jowar will be held in Chamarajanagar on August 7.
The chairman said the commission had decided to carefully watch the cultivation paterns of 17 crops including ragi, jowar, paddy, cotton, tur, onion, tomato, chilli, arecanut, coconut, rabi jowar and hybrid jowar. Their main focus would be on ragi, jowar and rainfed paddy.