Marginal farmers who had given up cultivation of Nanjangud rasabale after suffering huge losses are now reaping profits after switching over to Yelakki (Ney Poovan) bananas, a species popular in Tamil Nadu, and G9 (Grande 9), an improved variety of the Pacha balehannu.
With better profits and easier cultivation practices compared to rasabale, the demand for these varieties is high in Nanjangud.
Farmers say the crops are cost-effective. By growing the hybrid variety in an acre, they can earn around `1 lakh, while Yelakki fetches around Rs 80,000.
“As the soil type, temperature and several other factors are quite conducive to cultivate these varieties of banana, by using low-cost inputs, we are able to earn good returns,” says a farmer. Devarasanahalli village head Venkatesh said: “I incurred huge losses after the failure of rasabale. The plants are very susceptible to viral attacks and the cost of maintenance is high.”
According to officials in the Department of Horticulture, farmers are now growing Yelakki in thousands of hectares, while cultivation of rasabale has shrunk to less than 25 acres in the past two decades. Horticulture Department senior assistant director B M Shivalingappa says farmers are showing more interest in growing Yelakki as it requires minimum maintenance costs and also because there is a huge demand for it.