Bhubaneswar, Feb 6: Odisha Chief Secretary Suresh Chandra Mahapatra has directed the officials of the Horticulture department to promote and popularize jackfruit cultivation in the State.
Mahapatra directed the officials to popularize the cultivation of jackfruit with necessary supports like quality planting material, post-harvest processing, value addition and marketing. He added that Jackfruit could be branded and popularized as a super-food among the people, Chief Secretary’s office sources said here on Sunday.
The Chief Secretary directed officials to identify the potential areas where jackfruit could be cultivated in large patches. The department was asked to explore all possibilities for promoting it in the areas where people had a traditional skill for jackfruit cultivation. Odisha is the second-largest producer of jackfruit after Tripura. Jackfruit trees were found distributed in all most all districts of Odisha. However, around 15 districts contributed a major portion of the jackfruit production in the State.
Jackfruit trees were mostly confined to forest areas, backyards, wastelands, and road sites with around 3.15 MT of production per annum. Out of the total produce, around 55 per cent were consumed raw as vegetables, and around 35 per cent were consumed as ripe fruit mostly in festivities.
As per local climatic conditions, around 50 blocks in the State were found more suitable for large scale jackfruit production on a commercial scale. Chief Secretary directed to create extensive awareness about the nutritional composition of jackfruit along the lines of millet mission activities so that its commercial production would be taken up by the farmers. He also directed to promote local entrepreneurship for setting up post-harvest processing, and value addition enterprises on different verities of jackfruits and to increase the area under jackfruit cultivation in convergence with ongoing horticultural schemes and MGNRGES.
