How fox nuts might help keep Bihar farmers afloat in monsoon

DW (English)

Growing fox nuts — also known as lotus seeds or makhana — on low-lying wastelands could be a sustainable way of helping farmers in Bihar offset conventional crop loss. Extreme weather has been taking an increasing toll on rice and corn yields.

Transcript

00:00Lakhan Kisku proceeds cautiously.

00:05Once false step and he could get badly hurt.

00:08The water is full of prickly water lilies.

00:10He wants to get at their seeds at the bottom of the pond.

00:19If the water is clean, there's no issue.

00:22But in murky water, it hurts the body.

00:25I get blisters and wounds.

00:30The seeds are known as makhana, or fox nuts.

00:33Here in Pune, a village in northern Bihar, people like to eat the seeds fried or puffed.

00:38When the dried seeds are heated, they burst like popcorn.

00:43Lakhan used to grow chickpeas and makhana, was just a sideline.

00:47Five years ago, he switched to cultivating the prickly water lilies.

00:50He can earn up to 1000 rupees a day from the seeds.

00:54That's about 11 euros.

01:03It's good because I'm able to maintain my household, send my children to school.

01:10And I'm able to run my household well now.

01:17Thousands of farmers in Bihar now grow makhana.

01:20People here used to make a living from corn, cereals and rice.

01:23But with increased flooding, linked to climate change, yields have been hard hit.

01:29In this year alone, 240,000 hectares of rice fields were destroyed.

01:35Dr. Iyer Singh works at the research centre for makhana in Darbhanga in Bihar.

01:43He says water plants like prickly water lilies are more climate resilient and can better

01:48cope with the new conditions.

01:50One, the water doesn't change temperature rapidly.

02:01Its latent heat capacity is higher.

02:03That means that water is more resilient than other liquids.

02:09And the other is that if water bodies are filled with water, they have more organic

02:13matter.

02:17And if the amount of organic matter is higher, the land resiliency also is higher and it

02:22can retain a higher carbon content.

02:29Fox nuts are also grown in countries like Korea, Russia and Japan.

02:33But the Indian state of Bihar accounts for some 85% of global production.

02:38And demand is growing because makhana is currently hyped as a superfood by health-conscious city

02:43dwellers.

02:45Startups like Shambhu Prasad's are benefiting.

02:49It's very lightweight but it makes you feel that you don't have to eat too much.

02:55You know, just munch on some makhana and you'll feel filled right.

03:00Things are going well for the starter.

03:02A truckload leaves the company headquarters each day.

03:05And with order books full, the volume is due to rise significantly.

03:09One kilo now fetches eight times what it did ten years ago.

03:13For farmers, it has become more lucrative to cultivate the prickly water lilies in fields

03:18rather than harvesting them from ponds.

03:20The amount of land devoted to the crop has almost doubled in the last decade.

03:26Anil Kumar from Purnia's agricultural college explains the advantages.

03:34In the pond system, if the water is four feet deep, the plant's vegetative energy will be

03:38needed for it to grow up four feet at least.

03:41And that exhausts its energy.

03:43But in the field system, this is preserved.

03:45When its vegetative energy is converted into reproductive energy, that increases the number

03:50of flowers and the amount of fruit.

03:54In Bihar, there are more than 20,000 wetlands, so there is still room for expansion.

04:00Experts say that many are suited for the cultivation of makhana, and it could help offset the loss

04:05of rice fields.

04:11We need a central government project for the makhana mission to holistically develop the

04:16waterlogged areas.

04:18In Bihar, about 900,000 hectares of land is not being utilised.

04:25Funds should be allocated to make that area suitable for fox nut or fish farming.

04:36Prickly water lilies can cope with the increasingly serious flooding and increase soil fertility

04:40too.

04:42Fox nuts have become a valuable source of income for farmers who were being forced to

04:46leave their homes and go in search of a livelihood.

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