Sambalpur: Kuchinda sub-division in Sambalpur district is famous for red chillies. Known as ‘Bamanda Chillies,’ they have distinct colour, aroma and taste. These qualities make them so special that chilly lovers find them irresistible. Their popularity is so much that there was a demand for giving Bamanda Chillies Global Identity (GI) tag last year.
Now, the famous chillies are on the verge of losing their place in culinary history as almost 80 per cent of the farmers are not willing to cultivate them because of exploitation, distress sales and lack of market support from the government.
The crop area of Bamanda Chillies has fallen so drastically that they are being grown on just 10 acres this year in a village near Kuchinda, where it was grown on more than 150 acres in previous years.
A farmer, Rinku Mohapatra, has grown chilly on just 2 acres this year, whereas he used to grow it on about 6 acres earlier. The story is similar with many more farmers in the region. They blame the government’s apathy and its faulty policy for their plight and the steep fall in chilly farming.
The name and fame of Bamanda Chillies used to attract traders from different states. Inter-state traders used to lift truckloads of red chillies from local regulated marketing committee (RMC) yards.
Six years ago, the situation was better when chilly farmers got encouragement with a government organisation IPICOL and Seashore jointly procuring the local chillies through RMC at the rate of Rs 80 per kg.
But the arrangement flopped miserably when IPICOL pulled out from the joint venture after Seashore was doomed following its involvement in chit-fund activities. The local administration should have come to the rescue of the chilly farmers, as they were in trouble, but nothing of that sort had been done, due to sheer administration apathy.
On the other hand, the administration had drawn an ambitious plan last year to link it to National Accredited Market System through RMC. There were heaps of red chillies at the RMC yards as the administration had compelled the farmers to sell all their produce there only.
Then it was proved to be a faulty arrangement as the local brokers had brought down the chilly price drastically due to their monopoly in the RMC yards. The farmers had to face distress sale sustaining huge losses. Needless to say, chilly has lost its charm among the farmers.
Kuchinda, Jamankira and Bamra blocks of Sambalpur district; Laikera, Kirmira and Kolabira blocks of Jharsuguda district and Tileibani block of Deogarh district are traditionally Bamanda Chilly growing areas where it is cultivated as a cash crop.
Since the soil is suitable for growing chillies in those areas, there has been a century-old tradition of cultivating Bamanda in that region. The legend has it the then King of Bamanda state was very fond of fruits. So, he used to get fruits from Kolkata market. Once the king’s men brought seeds of this particular variety of chilly from there just out of curiosity. The local farmers had started growing the chilly variety on large scale after realizing they got good yield in trial farming.
Since then they adopted Bamanda Chillies as a cash crop after harvesting paddy crop that is grown between October and May. The chilly crop doesn’t require much water and it is found to be pest resistant.
There are many efforts by the governments to encourage farmers to go for cash crops instead of depending solely on the popular paddy crop in the state. When chilly is a cash crop, why the government is neglecting Bamanda Chilly farmers’ interest defies logic. PNN