Headlines       Vol. 2 Issue 1-2

May 7- May 21 , 1999

Orange cultivation goes down in Jampui Hills The picturesque Jampui Hills area, which has earned the sobriquet of 'The Orange Basket' for growing world famous juicy oranges, may soon lose its lustre with the cultivators planning to go for large-scale coffee plantation. For the last three years the orchards, located along Mizoram-Tripura border, have witnessed a rise in fungal disease leading to the depletion of orange bush cover, the Mizo cultivators said. General secretary of Mizo Convention and a prominent social worker R. K. Lyiana said that in the hill area, there was no other alternative before the farmers but to switch over to coffee plantation as that was more profitable in the present situation. However, the State Government's horticulture department passed the buck to the planters. The planters were not taking due care of the trees to protect from diseases as per the specification of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), managing director of Horticulture Corporation S. Bhattachajee said. Mr. Bhattarcharjee said the planters were not following procedures like cleaning of the tree trunk with lime water, spraying pesticide and removing dead plants regularly. The planters were not properly taking care of orchads while the yield in State Government orange orchards had not decreased as proper care had been taken as per the specification of the ICAR, Mr. Bhattacharjee informed. According to Mr. Lyiana, an orchard with 700/800 trees used to yield oranges of rupees two lakh a year. With the dip in this year's production, the income would come down to Rs. 40,000, he claimed. As per the 1991 census, there are about 700 Mizo families, scattered all over the Jampui Hills each of them possessing at least one orchard having 700 to 1000 orange trees. In Bhangmun area of the hills there are 160 Mizo families all of them having orchards. The Mizo cultivators are jittery that if the spread of disease was not checked, no trader will come forward with a big purse to take lease of the gardens and would opt for coffee plantation instead with the congenial cool environment in the hills as the perfect set-up. Confirming that the yield was going down day by day the block development officer of Jampui Hills, M. K. Debbarma, said cultivators were finding it difficult to invest in a big way for protecting the plants with escalation in the price of medicines. Moreover, water crisis has further compounded their problems, he said. About 50,000 saplings of coffee have been distributed among the cultivators in 1997-98, the BDO said adding in the coming year they have plans to distribute one lakh coffee saplings. The tourism department of the State Government had been organising 'Orange Festival' in Jampui Hills to lure more tourists by organising various attractive programmes.

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