A thorny desert plant has given birth to a new drinks industry in India. In Kandukur, Andhra Pradesh, most of the farmers earlier grew tomatoes, groundnuts and maize. In 2010, some traders reached Kandukur in search of a cactus named Agave Americana. Farmers considered it useless and used it as a field fence. According to BBC World report, this agave cactus is the backbone of Mexico’s Rs 1.4 lakh crore tequila and mezcal industry. ‘Blue Agave’, which grows only in selected places in the Mexican state of Jalisco, is approved for making tequila. Currently, it is not cultivated commercially in India. Farmers and entrepreneurs collect wild agave. Now farmers of many villages within a radius of 100 km in Kandukur are supplying to distilleries on a large scale. They get good price for this. That is why it has come to be called ‘Blue Gold’. Agave cultivation is difficult. The most important part of the plant is the ‘piña’ (pineapple-like core) in which sugar is stored, but as soon as the plant starts flowering, all the sugar quickly moves up the stem and the piña becomes useless. According to farmers, the plant has to be cut just before flowering. After cutting, it is necessary to take it to the pressure cooker within 24 hours, otherwise the sugar starts rotting. The taste gets spoiled. The agave spirit market in India is growing 31% annually. Consumers are now more open to trying new spirits, and although agave drinks cannot replace whiskey, they can create their own market. Desmond Nazareth, who started India’s first agave distillery in 2011, is searching for land for its cultivation with the help of satellite imagery. Once placed in the wrong place, 9-13 years of hard work can go waste. However, there is a big difference between the models of India and Mexico. Due to decades of selective breeding in Mexico, the quality of agave is uniform, while in India the sugar content varies. Due to this, it is difficult to standardize production. This is why brands like ‘Loca Loca’ still source blue agave from Mexico. Systematic cultivation of agave has taken place for years in the red soils of the state of Jalisco in Mexico. There is currently no organized cultivation of agave in India. Wild plants scattered in Karnataka, Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh are collected by local agents. With millions of acres of suitable land in the Deccan Plateau, India can compete with Mexico in the future.
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बेकार समझा जाने वाला कैक्टस बना किसानों का ‘ब्लू गोल्ड’: मेक्सिको में 1.4 लाख करोड़ रुपए की टकीला इंडस्ट्री, इसके लिए कच्चा माल भेज रहे भारतीय किसान
