Remorseless Progress

Kerala's traditional chips losing to other snacks

Kerala's traditional snacks industry, dominated by banana and tapioca chips, is losing market share to the invasion by outside varieties, according to Mr Alex Thomas, Managing Director, Tierra Food India Pvt Ltd.

Multinational as well as large Indian companies have lured customers to the potato chips and corn-based extruded snacks sold by them, he said here on Thursday.

Banana and tapioca are two major crops cultivated in Kerala by small and medium farmers, and a fair share of the produce earlier went towards chips production. Owing to falling demand, the produce is now largely consumed as fresh fruit, which is subject to volatile prices compared to the fair and consistent prices fetched by the processed product.

MISSING ‘COOL' FACTOR

Increasingly restricted to festivals such as Onam and other functions such as marriages, potato and tapioca chips are no longer seen as ‘cool' by the younger generation, which prefers the potato chips or extruded snacks available in small and trendy packages, he said. 

 One really doesn't mind old habits dying and new habits being formed, but in this case two things:

1. The extruded snacks are the closest to poison for the kids.  High-sodium, high-salt, and I believe totally lacking in any nutrition whatsoever.  When kids eat these frequently, they develop a taste for such high-salt/sodium food junk food.  Not good.
2. The small trendy packages.  They are choking the environment.

So, can someone turn back the clock please?

Millets - Back To The Future for Dharwad Farmers

Magic of Millets

Till the late ‘80s, millets were a crucial part of agricultural produce in the Dharwad region before cash crops like maize, improved varieties of cotton and soya bean took over. Today, farmers and consumers of Dharwad district are rediscovering the importance of millets, writes Anitha Pailoor 

Angadi says, “When we got a month’s income as a day’s wages, we forgot all about millets in our daily diet. Cooking rice was an easy and quicker way out. Now we have understood that the time saved is now spent in the waiting lounges of clinics.” 

It may just be me, but even the names sound musical:

He explains, “Jowar, little millet (saave), foxtail millet (navane), pearl millet (sajje) and to a certain extent, finger millet (ragi) and proso millet (baraga) formed a key part of the agricultural produce in Dharwad district till the late Eighties. When cash crops like maize, improved variety of cotton and soya bean were introduced, the tricky post-cultivation processes of raising millets turned out to be tedious and cumbersome for farmers.