Rameswaram: Fishers suffer as jasmine farmers

Rameswaram: With the continuing uncertainties in coastal fishing in Rameswaram, particularly due to the frequent attacks and arrests by the Sri Lankan Navy, a fairly large group of fishermen here who switched over to jasmine cultivation for livelihood security are  in a limbo as jasmine prices crashed.

In a quiet development in recent years, about 500 fishermen families of Rameswaram gave up their traditional vocation of fishing and began cultivating the much sought after jasmine flower in places like Akkalmadam, Thangachimadam, Peikarumbu and Thenkuda in a small way.

“To start with, it gave us a reasonable steady income in the absence of fishing, particularly during festival periods when demand for jasmine shot up,” says S Kalidas, a fisherman-turned jasmine farmer in Peikarumbu area. “But this was short-lived once middlemen entered the field,” he rued.

For instance, during Deepavali festival last year, one kg of jasmine fetched the farmers here Rs 1,500, but this year the price has crashed to Rs 500 per kg, he explained. “Our earnings from jasmine have suddenly dwindled as this is the price that middlemen offer us,” Kalidas said, adding, this was hardly sufficient to cover costs including for wage labour to local womenfolk for picking the flowers.

“Our predicament is so bad that jasmine flowers go unpicked from the cultivating plots, and it has put jasmine farmers in Rameswaram into great deal of distress for they are in no mood to go back to fishing either,” he further explained.

Kalidas suggested that as much of jasmine grown was now going into making of perfumes, the Tamil Nadu government should consider setting up a jasmine perfumed unit in Rameswaram to help the local growers survive without they having to go back to fishing.