Six years ago, Muliya Venkatakrishna Sharma developed a hobby of scouting for jackfruit in his neighbourhood. Sharma was mocked, for jackfruit (Artocarpus heterophyllus) is a “poor man’s fruit”. Undeterred, he continued with the aim of bringing awareness about the benefits of the fruit. “Millions of households in Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Malaysia and Bangladesh have been incorporating jackfruit into their menu, but 75 per cent of jackfruit grown in India goes a waste,” he rues.
His muse has turned into a movement. Sharma’s 2.5-acre hilly plot in Muliya near Alike village in Karnataka’s Dakshin Kannada District is home to 250 jackfruit trees of 75 varieties. “I have no intention of making money. I am developing it as a demonstration plot for the benefit of other farmers,’’ he says.
Jackfruit is a valuable food source that ensures food security, helps small farmers in distress and is a safe food as it is free from pesticide residues. The average age of the trees is less than five years, and 80 per cent of the saplings have been grafted by jackfruit expert Gururaj Balthila.
The plot creates awareness on ideal spacing between trees, intercrops such as tamarind that don’t interfere with the growth of jackfruit trees, varieties that are suitable for local conditions and how wild jackfruit (Hebbalasu) is best suited as rootstock for grafted saplings.
Every sapling in the plot has been identified in Sharma’s diary. “It helps me understand which variety is wilted and needs to be replaced,” he says. His son Radhakrishna M, a civil engineer, and his friends popularise jackfruit on social media. Radhakrishna has also trained on value additions of jackfruit in Maharashtra.
Sharma and his friends have named the trees. ‘Shradda’ is named after a neighbour’s daughter, ‘Smile’ is named after its owner Ismail, ‘Prashanti’ after an institute in Alike, ‘Eshanya’ after the eastern direction it faces, and so on. “It all started with ‘Akala’ (untimely), a tree in a farmer’s backyard in Guruvyankere (60 km from Mangaluru), which bore fruit even in the monsoon,” Sharma recollects.
Sharma has created Uber-Kepu Halasu Snehi Koota (Jackfruit Friends Forum) with some farmers, which strives to generate awareness about the fruit through activities under the guidance of farming experts in villages. The forum is the principal sponsor of ‘Jack Fests’ in villages. “The fests increase awareness about the nutritional value of this under-utilised crop. Jackfruit saplings have found a place in nurseries, and nearly three lakh saplings have been planted. Today, a marriage is incomplete without a jackfruit dish or kheer or ice cream,’’ says Sharma.