Kalanamak
India rules the global scented rice trade through basmati. But in the last 15 years, the area under its cultivation has remained at 0.5-0.6 million hectares. Production has stagnated at one to 1.5 million tonnes. This is because this scented rice variety can’t be grown beyond stipulated tracts in Haryana, Punjab and Uttaranchal (it would lose aroma and essential traits). At a time the global scented-rice market is growing at 12 per cent per annum, India seems to have very few aromatic varieties to offer. “The reason is the extra importance given to basmati, which has overshadowed the existence of more than 300 non-basmati scented rices in India,” says R K Singh, eminent aromatic rice researcher and former India representative of the Manila-based International Rice Research Institute (irri).
Research by scientists of the Uttaranchal-based Gobind Ballav Pant University of Agriculture and Technology (gbpuat) show the undivided Uttar Pradesh region has already lost the germplasm of 20 non-basmati scented varieties after the onset of the Green Revolution see: Treasure lost. Only eight such varieties are still cultivated and are being protected through scientist-farmer participation. The most prominent one is ‘kalanamak’(see: An export opportunity.
Outshining basmati Kalanamak, a non-basmati scented rice variety grown primarily in the tarai region of Uttar Pradesh, is so named because its husk is black. This variety has raised much hope amongst Indian farmers and rice-exporters due to traits superior even to the most preferred basmati [Dehradun Basmati (Type-3)].
According to ‘Study on indigenous aromatic rice’ led by gbpuat professor U S Singh, kalanamak easily outclasses basmati type-3 for the primary trait of aroma . Its elongation after cooking