The Karnataka Agricultural Price Commission (KAPC) and the Department of Agriculture will make all efforts to secure Geographical Indication (GI) status for Rajamudi variety of rice of Karnataka, and constitute a special committee to take forward the initiative.
This was announced by the KAPC chairman Prakash Kammaradi at the Rajamudi stakeholders meeting here on Saturday. Mr. Kammaradi said the entire cost incurred to secure GI status would be borne by the commission, and the special committee to be constituted to take forward the initiative should help fetch the results within a year, he said.
The stakeholders meeting and the Akki Mela were held in collaboration with Sahaja Samruddha, an NGO promoting the conservation of indigenous variety of crops, besides organic and natural farming practices.
Mr. Kammaradi said the special committee will comprise five members, including representatives from the commission, and it will be vested with the responsibility of ferreting out all details pertaining to the unique characteristic features of the rice variety, completing the formalities, etc.
“The committee will work to secure the GI tag for Rajamudi by the end of 2019,” he said.
The long-term plan was to have similar exercises to identify and secure GI tags for at least 10 varieties of agricultural crops that are unique to the State, he added.
The resource persons at the meeting mooted the idea of identifying a geographical cluster of Rajamudi cultivating areas such as Arkalgud, Sakleshpur, and Holenarsipur, and promote the variety as unique to these regions. It was also suggested that efforts should be made to convince and convert more paddy farmers to switch to Rajamudi variety, which is cultivated on over 10,000 hectares in the south Karnataka region.
M.P. Rajanna, research scientist of VC Farm in Mandya, said scientific studies on the benefits of Rajamudi indicated that it had a higher protein content (8% to 10%) and highlighted the salient features of the rice, which bears a red tinge.