“The Luscious Litchi”

The taste of sumptuous litchi lingers on in the palates of the fruit lovers especially East Indians, who relish the freshly tree picked juicy and fleshy succulent fruits, well deserved to be hailed as the Queen of fruits.

India is the second largest producer of litchi after China and accounts for about one-fifth of the global production. Presently, the area under litchi is around 3 lakhs hectare with an annual production of about 18 lakhs tones. Bihar ranks top in production and area under litchi in the country producing 70% of total litchi from nearly 54% of the area under litchi plantation in the country. In Bihar, litchi is mainly cultivated in the districts of Muzaffarpur, Vaishali, Sitamarhi, West & East Chaparan, Darbhanga, Samastipur. Area under litchi in Muzaffarpur district is about 8000 Hectares with a production of about 75000t.

Major litchi producing pockets:

1. Bihar (Muzzafarpur, East Champaran, Samastipur, Vaishali, Bhagalpur)
2. Uttarakhand (Dehradun, Pithauragarh, Nainital, Haridwar)
3. West Bengal (Murshidabad, 24 Paraganas)
4. Assam (Kamrup, Sonitpur, Bongaigaon)
5. Punjab (Gurdaspur, Ropar, Hoshyarpur)
6. Uttar Pradesh (Saharanpur,)
7. Jharkhand & Tripura

Major commercial varieties :

Bihar – Shahi, Rose Scented, China, Kasba, Purbi, Early Bedana, Late Bedana

Uttarakhand– Rose Scented, Dehradun, Calcuttia

West Bengal – Bombay Green, Kalyani Selection

Punjab– Muzaffarpur, Dehradun, Seedless, Late Bedana

Litchi, a highly perishable fruit, is marketed as early as possible. Farmers directly sell their produce to the middlemen. The fruit is sold through a post harvest contractor to the wholesale or commission agent, who undertakes the harvesting and packing, in addition to transporting the produce to the market. More than 65% of the growers prefer sale through post harvest contractor and about 20% undertake self marketing.

Litchi has a fair share of its problems

“At present the litchi economy in the State is plagued by variety of problems such as lack of good planting material, inadequate processing and marketing facilities etc. Due to perishable nature of the fruit, lack of cold storages and supply chain, unorganized marketing chain and failure to meet the international export standards, the export potential of this fruit has not crossed even 1% of the State’s production,” laments Mr. Ramadhar, Chairman, Bihar State Farmers Commission, Patna.

Litchi farmer Chandan Jha says, “Litchi is plucked at 42°C. It cannot be packed like other fruits. It needs to be transported at 2-4°C or else it will rot within 72 hours”. Jha informed about a long pending demand for a common facility centre with air-conditioned vans, storage and treatment service. “Even if the state Government gives a 50% grant on transportation through a cold chain from Bihar to the metros, the inter-state litchi trade would turn in huge profits for the farmers”.

Pankaj Kumar, a farmer in Muzaffarpur says, “Bihar can figure among the big exporters only if the government encourages us”. Bihar Government officials, however, said it was not possible to provide a cold chain facility from Bihar to Delhi and Mumbai. A senior official in the Agriculture Department said: “The Government has been considering storage centres. It may also take up the matter with the new Railway Minister to provide air-conditioned bogies for litchi export”.

Sizzling heat and absence of rains has hit hard the production of litchis in the district, known for its juicy and seedless variety of the fruit. "Due to no rain in most areas of Uttarakhand, the trees have not borne fruits and the litchi production has decreased by nearly 25%," says horticulture expert Amar Singh. The market price of the fruit has also increased due to a slump in its production. "The low production has incurred huge losses to the producers of the fruit. At present a total of 3,500 hectare area is used for the production of litchi, which has been affected by the change in weather," says Kirti Singh, a producer in Vikasnagar.

After leading the country’s litchi production for decades, climatic setbacks this year have shrunk production, by volume and in quality. Growers have suffered losses and exporters are disinterested after last year’s surplus production and impressive exports. Dr. KK Kumar, Director, NRC on Litchi says, “Litchi production this year had been badly hit by high temperatures, followed immediately by rains. Farmers and exporters have all been hit. Inclement weather conditions and a fall in the water table have affected litchi cultivation. Even many of the farmers went for pre-mature harvesting to lessen the losses.” Exporters too were hit hard. Last year, a record 100t of litchi was exported. This year, this would not come to even half the quantity. The quality of litchi fruit has also suffered. Many have turned sour. The export quality litchis are to be delicious and should have the diameter of 6 cm. Bihar’s lone exporter of litchi, Raj Kumar Kedia, said that 40% of the fruit had been destroyed by the excessive heat in April, followed by the rains. “The fruit has been damaged and its quality is not fit for export,” he said.

Litchi Fresh Fruits Export

Litchi is being exported to many of the Western countries and Gulf. But due to low productivity of orchards, we are unable to meet the export the demand, as of high domestic demands and higher freight cost added with the problem of cool chain infrastructure. Litchi is exported mainly through Nafed to England, France, Netherland, US, Canada, Dubai, Saudi, UAE, Vietnam, Nepal, Bangladesh etc at very competitive prices. Some times, even a very low/ no export is noticed, because of lack of exportable quality Litchi and lower production and natural calamities in the production pockets.

Packaging

After harvesting, fruit should be packed as quickly as possible, as their quality deteriorates markedly, if they are exposed to sun even for a few hours. Litchi fruit cannot be kept for more than a few days after harvest, at room temperature.

India is eyeing a new Israeli technology to increase the life span of the litchi fruit. Israel had an innovative technology to keep perishable fruits like litchi fresh for at least 28 days. Access to this technology will increase earnings manifold. Soon, the Union agriculture ministry is going to sign a MoU with Israel for the transfer of the technology.

Cool chain is essential during the transport of export quality commodity all the way from the farm to the customer. This helps in maintaining the temperature inside the box at the same low level as in the cold storage at the various stages right from the orchards to the point of disposal and consumption.

Processing and Value- addition:

There are also about 5 litchi processing units operating from Muzaffarpur and another 2-3 in the adjoining areas of Hajipur. Few of them are Litchika International, Shyama Agro- Industry, Premier Food Products, Thakur Litchi Industry, Radha Krishna Implex Pvt. Ltd., Amrapali Food & beverages etc. They mainly process the litchi fruits into products like litchi squash, litchi honey, litchi juice and canned litchi. Litchi wine is also expected to hit the market soon.

Processing Units

S. No.	NAME OF UNIT	PRODUCTS
1	Litchika International	Litchi Squash, Litchi Canning & Litchi Honey
2	Shyama Agro-industry	Squash & Canning
3	Premier Food Products	Squash & Canning
4	Thakur Litchi Industry	Squash & Canning
5	Radha Krishna Implex Pvt. Ltd.	Pasturised Litchi Juice

Ways to unlock the litchi potential

To boost production and marketing of litchi, a three-tier system involving growers, processors and exporters may be formed along with export processing zones and marketing boards. Storage, pre-cooling and transport facilities can be developed to help the growers realize better price. Processing units close to production centres, with financial and technical support from various Govt./non-Govt. agencies is also another area that has to intensely developed.

According to Bachcha Prasad Singh, General Secretary, All India Litchi Grower’s Association the state and central government is not much serious about the development of the Litchi farmers and the industry. The farmers have to be provided with some kind of stimulus package to boost the production and exports in the form of schemes, training programmes and exposure to the emerging technologies, which has not well taken care by the exclusive Research centre and University authorities.

Dr. P. K. Ray, Professor, Horticulture, Rajendra Agricultural University, Pusa says, “Growers have to be linked with the market chain and they have to be provided with the incentives to enhance the acreage and adopt the proper valid technologies to the farms, then only we can think of foreign market as we are not even able to meet out our domestic consumption. The post harvest losses are huge in litchi which can be reduced by creating processing hubs in the production pockets.”

Abid Hussain