Lucknow

For the past few years, the litchi farmers in Bihar – the state has the highest litchi production in the country — have been suffering as consuming litchi has been cited as one of the reasons behind the deaths occurring due to the Acute Encephalitis Syndrome (chamki fever). However, this year, the lockdown as augmented their problems as traders are not able to buy litchi.

As the state produces litchis in abundance, traders from different parts of the country start arriving in Bihar from March-April. However, this year, they are stuck because of the lockdown.

Sudhir Kumar Pandey, a litchi farmer based in Bisanpur Bakhari village in Muzaffarpur district of Bihar, said: “If the lockdown extends any further, the farmers are going to suffer a lot of loss. Last year, people had spread useless rumours by associating litchi with the chamki fever, causing a lot of damage. This time, the damage will be due to corona.” He owns a 1.5 hectare of litchi orchard.

Litchi is currently being cultivated in one lakh hectares across the country, which will produce 7.5 lakh tonnes of litchi. Out of this, Bihar has litchi orchards spread across 33-35,000 hectares and the state produces 40 per cent of the total litchis produced in India.

Litchis are also cultivated in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and West Bengal. In Muzaffarpur alone, there are litchi orchards spread across an area of 11,000 hectares. The litchi business in the state stood at Rs 1,000 crore last year and the share of Muzaffarpur was Rs 400 crore. This year too, litchi was expected to fetch more than Rs 500 crore.

Baccha Prasad Singh, the president of the Litchi Growers of India, said: “This year the litchi production is expected to be good despite the loss of 10 per cent due to the hailstorm and rain. But, at the same time, there is no possibility of its sale because the litchi farmer does not trade himself; traders come to buy from him. Here, all the local traders are mere agents of the outside traders and buy only with their help. The bigger traders have simply withdrawn as they are held up in bigger cities.”

He added: “The government is saying that transport facilities would be provided, but that’s not the solution because even if they take our produce to Delhi, Mumbai or Lucknow, how are they going to sell it? When people can’t even step out of the house, how will they reach the market? Also, people would prefer buying essential goods and not litchis.”

Every year, beekeepers from many states like Uttar Pradesh reach litchi orchards in Bihar with their bees, but this time they could not do so because of the lockdown.

“This is the time when bees help in pollination of litchi, but beekeepers from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh have not arrived yet. If there are no bees, the production will surely get affected,” says Dr Vishal Nath, the director of Litchi Research Directorate, which is located in Muzaffarpur, Bihar.

Last year, following the deaths of children due to chamki fever in Muzaffarpur, people started questioning whether those children actually died after consuming litchi. This happened because Muzaffarpur, where the chamki-relateddeaths happened, is the area most popular for litchi cultivation.

Malti Singh owns two orchards of 1,000 trees in the Minapur block of Muzaffarpur district In Bihar. Last year, both the orchards had been auctioned for Rs 1.25 lakh and Rs 95,000, but this time, she has given up all hope.

She said: “The orchards of some people were auctioned before Holi, and then began the panic due to corona. The traders have not come since then. Last year also, there was a lot of damage due to chamki fever. If traders do not come this time, many may end up committing suicide.”

She added: “Due to the absence of any trader, we got in touch with those who manufacture juices so that they could buy the pulp, but they said that they are still holding onto the last year’s stock and don’t need fresh pulp.”

The Department of Agriculture and Horticulture has swung into action to make sure farmers don’t suffer. Nath Kishore, the director of the Horticulture department, informed: “Our endeavour is to provide transportation to avoid a loss to the farmers. We’ve also held a meeting with the Litchi farmers and officials to this effect. So far, the produce from here could not make it to Southern states where fruits are sold at very good prices. So, this time, we’d send our produce there as well.”