Mentha mints no money in parched Bundelkhand

The study was conducted in February — the month when Bundelkhand farmers sow mentha. Though it is not the ideal time for sowing the crop, the local farming practice does not allow them to take it up earlier.

Samples of mentha were collected from as many as 100 households of 20 villages in five development blocks of Jalaun district, said Utkarsh K Sinha of CCSR.

The study revealed that for a large number of farming households (66.4 per cent), the average annual income is less than Rs 1.5 lakh. Only 3.6 per cent families have average annual income of more than Rs 3 lakh. While almost all the families are cultivating mentha for the past five years, the study shows it has not translated into high income for them.

All these farmers are cultivating mentha as their principal crop, besides producing other crops like wheat, coarse grains, sugarcane and others. The study also confirms that those farmers, who are cultivating mentha, do not practice mixed farming.

Farmers in Bundelkhand usually prefer to grow wheat (41.97 per cent) as it ensures food security. Mentha (36.28 per cent) and sugarcane (31.39 per cent) are the other preferred crops. In practice, however, farmers who cultivate mentha do not cultivate any other crop due to lack of finances and other resources. Mentha cultivation has only ended up affecting their food security.

Moreover, if mentha is cultivated on dry land, water requirement increases in accordance with the water content of the land. The study data suggests that the irrigation cost incurred by a farmer in mentha cultivation is Rs 8,856 per acre for two cuttings and Rs 10,824 per acre for three cuttings. “It is important to note here that these cost data reflect only the expenditure on diesel and rent for pumping set and does not include the water price. One can easily presume what cost Bundelkhand is paying for mentha cultivation!” wondered Sinha.

An Indian menthol or mint grower can expect to make about US$1,000 per hectare per year, rising to US$2,400 when a good crop rotation is followed owing to the less time it takes for the crop to mature.

The data in the study has, however, underlined that Bundelkhand farmers are merely getting 30 to 35 litres of mint oil per acre due to high cost involved in its cultivation, which is coupled with falling market price of mint oil due to excess production.

India’s ‘mint belt’ lies in the country’s breadbasket — a strip of plains and foothills about 1,500 km long and 250 km wide, just south of the Himalayan range, spanning the states of Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, UP and Bihar. Of these, UP’s contribution is maximum, almost 75 per cent of the total output.

Mentha & water

•One-time watering of mentha crop needs 8 to 10 hours of water pumping (from an electric pump)

•It requires 50 lakh litre water per acre to produce 30 to 35 litre of mentha oil (average production/acre)

•On the contrary, it requires only 50 to 150 litre of water for production of one kg of wheat — the principal crop of Bundelkhand