“Key Informant Survey” of Production, Value, Losses and ... - DfID

another; a guard is placed over the Patel well, but not the Shatriya one; asked why,
the king replies that a Patel may climb out, but if one Shatriya tries to climb out
the others will pull him back in.
#A011 DATE 15/4/4 TEAM JMS/RCJ. Total seven acres. About 60 years old. Of his 7acres
4 are actually here.
BITTER GOURD PRICE ADVANTAGES He grows all bitter gourd. Why BG > other vegetables?
More production, more economic return. Wheat is less good than BG. You get 1 ton of
wheat per bigha. This is 24 quintals per acre. 16-17oooRs/acre. BG brings in 1 lakh
Rs per acre. BG normally raises Rs400/20kg but now but price has fallen because of BG
being brought in from S Gujarat. Because of improvements in roads & transport. Have
you tried any other vegetables - tomato, cauliflower? No. Why not? He has no
follow-on crop. He lets the land fallow from Oct to Jan. Started 20 years back with
small gourd. After 5 years switched to bitter gourd, and grew both. Since 2003
stopped the small gourd and now grows bitter gourd only. Small gourd is more
labour-intensive - particularly in harvest. How does it compare in price? Bitter
gourd fetches more per kg - small gourd price is now 100/kg, bitter gourd 140. He
grew potatoes once - but had to spend 10K and got 10K.
GOURD PESTS What is the worst pest? Leafhopper. Sucking pests. How about fruit fly? A
problem in bg arising out of being a problem in smooth and little gourd. If BG is
left to itself, sucking pests are the major problem and ff not too bad {BG is
apparently relatively resistant to FF}. Infested bitter gourd, and even healthy ones,
if unsold can be dried, powdered and sold - Rs25/kg. If the market price goes down,
and he gets Rs50/20kg, you slice and dry it. 20kg of gourd will produce 3kg of dried
chips. At 22-25Rs/kg, this price is better than for fresh. In bitter gourd,
leafhopper is a problem even when fruit fly is a problem. The pandals of BG which are
near to those of Small G and Smooth G get ff problems worse than the others.
GOURD PRICE DETERMINANTS Smooth gourd price is better than bitter gourd, and easier
to harvest. It is added to meat in non-veg cuisine, e.g. by muslims, hotels. Non-veg
biriani. Makes a good gravy. This is why the price is good.
FRUIT FLY Fruit fly is not a big problem here.
PEST SEQUENCE 1st pest to arrive - caterpillar. 2 weeks. Another 1-2 months, say 6-7
weeks, the jassid comes - when the vine reaches the pandal. Spray once and it goes
away, if the temperature drops is also goes. If you are good to others, God will
reward you. The soil is your mother. Worship the goddess and pest problems diminish.
Believe in karma - do good and not harm.
HUCHHI PEST CONTROL A neighbour of the huchhi says he sprayed twice this year. He has
had people from a pesticide company round. He doesn't know against which pest this
was.
#A012 DATE 15/4/4 TEAM JMS/RCJ. Haryala village. He helps his father, only since the
last 3 years.
GOURD AND VEGETABLE PROS AND CONS He has 6-7 acres. 16-17 acres he had on a share
basis and he took tomatoes. Rented basis. He paid 40oooRs rent for 17 acres. 800
quintals of tomato. Sold in the market. 600 quintals was spoilt because of Heliothis.
Price raised was 30rs/20kg. So he earned 124ooo. But he spent 2 lakh so suffered a
loss. But he will still grow tomatoes - if you make a loss in 1 year, in 2nd year may
gain. The two previous years he made money on tomato, but on less than 17 acres. Here
he has 1.5 acre under BG, the rest with smooth g. Smooth g is better than BG and
tomato because price is maintained, particularly in summer before the rainy season,
in the rainy season the price goes down. In this season the price is 300rs/kg. In
monsoon this goes down to 60rs, because production rises. In that case, what is the
IMFFI Semi-Structured Interview Survey - 18 of 66