Lac production

Lac cultivation has been a traditional activity of tribal communities in Jharkhand. During the eighties, the advent of audiocassettes destroyed the gramophone record industry, which was the main market for Lac. This led to price crash and lot of tribal families abandoned this practice. Over the years however alternate uses of lac have emerged and now there is a large unmet demand of lac in the international markets. The project area has a large number of host plants Kusum, Ber (Zizyphus jujuba) and Palash trees. These host plants have a potential to provide significant income to poor families. During the last project period, the activity has been taken up at a pilot scale. Especially the Brood crop, taken up during the period July to October performed consistently well in this area. This opens up scope for multiplication of seed material during the brood season in Santhal Parganas that could be used for meeting huge unfulfilled demand for brood sticks during the commercial lac crop across the state. Such possibilities would also create good income opportunities for brood rearers as the harvest of the brood lac always fetches high prices. As the practice is new to the area and the crop requires intensive care and coincide with the main agriculture season, hence attaining large scale would still take some time. In the current proposal it is proposed to involve 300 Swarojgaris in the brood crop cycle with improved package of practices.