Cashew cultivation, widely considered a cash crop, is slowly but steadily growing among tribal farmers of Pachamalai in Tiruchi district.
Tapioca has been a major crop of Pachamalai. It is cultivated in about eight thousand acres. It is mainly cultivated in every village of Tenpuranadu. Though farmers are well versed with the techniques of growing tapioca, a section of them has lost interest in cultivating the crop due to poor returns, syndicate among buyers of tapioca in offering prices and high cost of overheads.
His focus is mainly to increase cashew plantations by looking at the yield of cashew crops grown by a group of farmers with the support of hand-in under the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD)-promoted Integrated Tribal Development Project (ITDP). has gone towards. -Hand, an NGO.
According to the farmers, unlike many other crops, cashew crop gives attractive returns to the farmers for 15-20 years. It gives yield once a year from April to May. It starts giving yield from the second or third year of planting. Initially the yield per tree is about one kg. Depending on the growth and maintenance of the crop, it varies from five to eight kilograms per tree. Farmers, seeing the yield and returns of the tribes who brought their land under cashew cultivation about six years ago, have started turning to the cashew crop.
According to a rough estimate, cashew has been cultivated in about 1,300 acres. Apart from the members of ITDP, other tribes have also turned to cashew cultivation. “We find that cashew is much better than tapioca in terms of total returns. After planting cashew on one acre of land, I started getting yield from the second year onwards. Manpower is hardly required to take care of the crop,” said N.K. near Thenpuranadu. D. Manivannan of Puthur says.
Another farmer said that unlike tapioca, cashew had a steady demand in the market, fetching a fair price. This was also one of the reasons for attracting the attention of farmers towards growing cashew crop on Pachamalai.