Imphal, June 12 2009: Manipur Chief Minister Okram Ibobi has been urged to declare Pineapple as the state fruit.

Manipur Pineapple Festival Committee, MPFC has submitted a Memorandum in this regard today.

Speaking to this reporter, Gin Gangte, Secretary of the festival committee said Pineapple is the largest fruits that is produced in Manipur, and rightfully could be honoured as the State Fruit.

About 2.40 crores of pineapple fruits are produced in the state.

The average weight of a single pineapple is said to be 1.5 kg, whereas, the weight of pineapple range from 1 to 3 kg.

As stated above, it can be surmised that, about 3.60 crore kg of pineapple are produced in Manipur.

"Besides historically this fruit was first cultivated with the regime of the then king Paikhomba", Gangte said, "This fact was supplemented by the literal meaning of the fruit in tribal dialect".

Pineapple was known as Leng-thei in Kuki dialect (meaning Fruit of Kings).

According to a survey conducted by his committee, Churachandpur district (70 lakh pineapples) is the highest producer of pineapple in Manipur which is followed by Thoubal(45 lacs) and Senapati districts(40 lacs).Interestingly, it is learnt that most of the pineapple cultivators in Churachandpur district concentrate in and around Khousabung villages.

Pineapples were planted in over 700 acres of land by the people of Khousabung, Bunglon, Ningthiching, New Ningthiching, Harmontlang, Muolhoih, S Nabil, Songdo, etc.

producing over 70 lakhs of pineapples every year.

Moirang in Bishnupur district and Churachandpur town and Imphal are the main markets.

Lamenting over the "stagnant price" of pineapple in Manipur markets, MPFC leaders want immediate fixation of price of 1 kg of pineapple not less that Rs 10 in order to encourage the farmers.

H Soizalal, an elder who also heads the pineapple festival committee said that the fruit was cultivated as a livelihood fruit by one farmer Songpu Gangte in 1947.Since then pineapple become the largest fruits produced in the state, far ahead of orange and lemon which have it's own places after state authority started to observe Orange and Lemon festivals annually.

For over the years Manipur has been producing pineapples at about 10,000 tonnes per hectare which for itself speaks that the state is indeed the highest producer and exporter of the juicy fruits in the country, reports claimed.

In view of its large scale production and other historical background, the MPFC has been requesting the Chief Minister to declare Manipur Pineapple Festival as a State Festival every year.

On the question of report of organising two different pineapple festivals in the state, MPFC Secretary Gin Gangte clarified that Manipur has two types of pineapples-Queen and Giant Kew varieties.

Queen pineapple is available in Thoubal and Imphal East while Giant Kew in other districts.

"The pineapple variety of Thoubal lasts till July end while those in rest of the state continues to available till the end of August, may be because of it we've two different festivals", he reasoned.

When pineapple festival was organised for the first time on August 30 last year, many visitors including some scientists from the Central Agricultural University feels that the current production of 10,000 tonnes of pineapple could be increased to 60,000 tonnes with the help of latest scientific method of cultivation.

They even suggested a cold storage for longer storage of the fruits.

The second edition of pineapple festival at Khousabung area in Churachandpur district is scheduled to be held from August 19 to 21 with active participation of over 300 cultivators in a move to give empowerment of the farmers, besides bringing all pineapples farmers of the state under a common platform and to draw the attention of the state government for the promotion of agro-based tourism and horticulture crops in the hills by framing a farmer's policy.

The salient features of the 3 day festival include Manipur pineapple show, seminar/workshop, Manipur pineapple musical concert for peace,Manipur pineapple queen contest, free eating joints, cultural session and open market for the farmers etc.

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