Kathua, Oct 29: The Agriculture Department’s experiment with growing castor crop over traditional maize and paddy crop for the first time in Kathua District has thus far turned out successful.

“While some of the castor plants we have grown in different areas of Kathua are in vegetative phase, the others are in the flowering phase. And all the plants grown are in healthy condition which means our efforts have borne fruit,” said Sanjeev Rai, Chief Agriculture Officer (CAO) Kathua.

The officer said that the decision to grow castor over traditional maize and paddy crop was taken in August this year as almost all the farmers of Kathua district had stopped growing maize and paddy crops due to the menace of monkeys. According to the J & K government, every year, paddy crops grown over 2200 hectare of land get affected by monkey menace in Kathua District.

The CAO Kathua said to help the distressed farmers, the department started to grow in some area’s lemon and lemon grass while as the crop of castor was grown only on a land measuring 4 acre in three areas of Kathua including, Logate, Khanyara, and Govindsar, on an experimental basis.

Sanjay Singh, one of the progressive farmers of Khadyar Village in Sahar Panchayat of Kathua District, who has grown a castor crop over 2 Kanals of land, said his plants have started bearing flowers and are in healthy condition.

“In case I’ll earn good dividends from the sale of my crop this year, I’ve decided to grow castor on a commercial scale from the next year,” Singh told Rising Kashmir.

Asked whether the government has made arrangements for the sale of the crop, he said, “we have been told that in Ghatti, where a biotech park has been set up by the government, an oil extraction unit has also been set up. The farmers would be able to sell their crop there to get the oil extracted from the seeds”.

“After this, the government has promised to provide marketing related support to the farmers to sell their oil crop. The farmers could also sell their crop individually,” added Sanjay Singh, the progressive farmer of the town, who is also the Panch of the village.

It is worth mentioning here that castor oil is used in cosmetics, pharmaceuticals and petroleum industries. While the rate of commercial castor crop is between Rs. 7000-8000 per quintal the price of one quintal of maize crop varies between Rs 1800-2600 in Jammu and Kashmir. Similarly, the rates of traditional varieties of paddy are low if the rates are to be compared with the castor crop.