Kalnamak Rice Seeking for Geographical Indication Tag

Geographical Indications has been filed as "Kalanamak" (Rice) on 25 March 2010 in class 30 by Shohratgarh Environmental Society in Siddarthnagar district of Uttar Pradesh. Application has receipt number 205 and it is in Pre-Examination stages.

Kalanamak: It husk is black in color .It is a tall (135-145 cm), long duration (160-170 days) and photosensitive variety. It has exceeding quality of taste, aroma and softness than any other rice variety. These characters ultimately lead to consumer demand and better market price. Kalanamak surpasses Basmati rice, considered to be finest quality rice in international trade, in all quality traits except grain length. Cooked rice is fluffy, soft, non-sticky, sweet, and easily digestible with relatively longer shelf-life

Production area : Kalanamak rice popularly called as “Black pearl of eastern UP” .It is an old local land race widely cultivated in the Tarai area adjoining Nepal particularly in the districts of Siddharthnagar, Santkabirnagar and Basti and in small pockets in districts Gorakhpur, Mahrajganj, Balrampur, Gonda, Bahraich, Shrawasti, Deoria and Padrauna (North Eastern Plain Zone of eastern UP).

Reason for decline of production: The Kalanamak area has rapidly declined over the past three decades due to poor yield. This poor yield due to panicle blast, lodging, long maturing, deteriorations in grain quality particularly loss of aroma and taste, non-availability of quality seeds and crop improvement program.

Transplanting methods: Farmers use two transplanting methods as Biju and Kalam, (A)The Biju method is the usual transplanting practice for rice i.e. the raising and uprooting of 25-30 day-old seedlings to be transplanted in well puddled and planked fields with 3-4 seedlings/hill. (B) Kalam is a special and most profitable method that requires double transplanting, a practice most common for long maturing tall rice varieties, especially in rain fed lowlands areas.

A new initiative for the improvement of Kalanamak rice:

GB Pant University of Agriculture and Technology (GBPUAT), Pantnagar, India and International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) collaborative program was launched in 1997 for collection, characterization and pure line selections of some prominent varieties of Kalanamak, Hansraj, Tilakchandan and Tapovan basmati. The team collected 41 germ plasm of Kalanamak from the districts of Siddharthnagar, Basti and Gorakhpur of eastern UP.

1. INDUAT and BHU scientists has collected ,isolated and field evaluated 14 Germplasm types of Kalanamak, which showed wide variation, but none of them showed any superiority over the check.

Note: R.K.Singh is the India’s representative at the Philippines-based International Rice Research Institute, and U S Singh of Pantnagar agricultural university form of a compendium called “A treatise on the scented rice of India" R.K SINGH under the banner of NEFORD (Nand Educational Foundation for Rural Development) has organized over 100 demonstrations to promote organic farming of Kalanamak rice in farmers of Siddharthnagar, Mau, Sant Kabirnagar and Azamgarh district of eastern UP.