Farmers, groups of farmers and farmers co-operatives in the state will get rights to grow, sell and export and process at least 11 horticultural products so far registered under geographical Indication (GI).
The horticulture department has delegated the registry user’s powers to the farmers of the local areas, enabling them to commercially cultivate the produce.
The department, which had the GI registry powers vested under its wings, has been empowered by the biotechnology centre at Hulimavu on the outskirts of Bangalore to delegate the powers to the farmers to develop the crops further.
“The biotechnology centre at Hulimavu has already protected 11 different horticultural crops under Geographical Indication certification. As primary transfer of rights we had earlier delegated powers to the horticulture department to with explicit instructions to transfer powers under the GI to the farmers,” Krishnamurthy, deputy director of the centre, said.
This process has started recently; the Biotechnology Centre Hulimavu was planning to directly transfer the benefits of certification to the farmers and groups of farmers to develop the crops” he added.
Karnataka has been awarded GI tag for 10 crops including Nanjangudu Rasabale (banana), oranges of Kodagu, betel leaves of Mysore, Mysore jasmine, Udupi jasmine, Hadagali jasmine, red banana of Kamalapura, red chakota of Devanahalli, appemidi (tender mango) of Sagar and matti gulla (endemic round brinjal) of Mattu near Udupi.
The first ‘harvest’ of the produce grown under the delegation of GI powers was carried out by the horticulture department at Kukkarahalli horticulture farm on Friday.
“The department sees this development as a path breaking event. The farmers will be the absolute owners of the GI tag for Nanjangudu rasabale. The demo farm has yielded the typical Nanjangudu rasabale, we have tested the composition of the fruit and it has matched with the crop that the traditional farms grow in Nanjangud, it also means that the Nanjangud rasabale could be grown in Mysore too and the farmers now have a larger area for cultivating this tasty and creamy type of banana,” said a horticulture department official.
Madae Gowda, a grower of Nanjanagudu banana, said the growers have planned for expanding their marketing network and plans were afoot to penetrate the high value market like the malls in Bangalore. One of the hypermarkets in Bangalore has also agreed to give a special counter under the banana section for the famous fruit.
“We will bring more land under rasabale cultivation, a team of members have also visited parts of Tamil Nadu and studied the cultivation methods of Tanjavore rasabale to increase yield and improve the size of each fruit,” he said.
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