- An historic heirloom grain valued for its local weather resilience and dietary advantages, Khapli or Emmer wheat is being revived by farmers in Maharashtra’s Jalgaon district.
- Efforts by particular person farmers and analysis establishments have led to the event of improved semi-dwarf Khapli varieties, boosting yield, illness resistance, and marketability.
- Regardless of rising demand and its premium value, Khapli wheat faces adoption hurdles primarily as a result of labour-intensive processing strategies.
Beneath the golden solar of Maharashtra’s Khandesh area, farmers in Jalgaon are reviving an historic grain — Emmer wheat, domestically generally known as Khapli gehu. As soon as a staple for his or her ancestors, this heirloom selection is making a gradual comeback within the area’s fertile soils. Valued for its local weather resilience and well being advantages, it’s drawing curiosity from each seasoned cultivators and a brand new technology of growers. The crop has reconnected Jalgaon’s farming households to their roots whereas providing a path in the direction of sustainable agriculture and improved livelihoods.
From historic settlements to trendy farms, Khapli wheat (Triticum dicoccon Schrank) has retained its relevance due to its genetic hardiness and dietary worth — qualities that in recent times are inspiring a renewed wave of cultivation throughout Maharashtra.
Jalgaon district, in northwestern Maharashtra, receives an common annual rainfall of round 690 mm, most of which falls through the southwest monsoon season from June to September. The area typically grapples with climatic challenges similar to droughts, heatwaves, and erratic rainfall, all of which immediately affect agricultural productiveness. Cotton and banana are the district’s major crops. Wheat, nonetheless, holds an necessary place within the native agricultural panorama.
Impressed by the well being advantages of Emmer wheat, Vaishali Patil, a farmer from Jalgaon, obtained just a few seeds from the Agharkar Analysis Institute’s agricultural farm in Baramati in December 2018. She initially planted them on two acres to offer diet to her mom who was battling leukaemia. However inside three years, she says, she expanded the cultivation to twenty acres. As phrase unfold by a krishi mela (farmers truthful) and native media protection, enterprising farmers began exhibiting curiosity. “I’ve to this point produced round 400 quintals, most of them bought as seeds to farmers in Jalgaon and others.”
Reviving an historic grain
Khapli wheat was among the many earliest cereals domesticated within the Fertile Crescent, a fertile area in current day Center East the place early agriculture and among the first human civilizations started. The crop traces its cultivation again to the Neolithic web site of Mehrgarh (6000-5000 BCE). It reached India by a number of migration routes and is at present cultivated primarily in Karnataka, Maharashtra, coastal Gujarat (Saurashtra), Tamil Nadu, and Andhra Pradesh.
The earliest documented cultivation of Emmer wheat in India is concentrated in Gujarat, Maharashtra, and Karnataka, with some presence in components of Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh.
As per a report revealed by A.B. Damania, Division of Plant Sciences, College of California, “Archaeological findings from Kunal in Haryana, Kanishkapura in Kashmir, Harappan settlement of Rohira in Punjab additionally present proof of Khapli cultivation.” The report speculates that Khapli wheat got here to Kashmir from the Center East by Persia and Afghanistan and to southern India by sea from northeastern Africa. At the moment Khapli wheat is estimated to be only one% of all wheat grown in India.
India’s first systematic assortment of Emmer wheat landraces started within the early Nineteen Fifties at Rishi Valley in Andhra Pradesh and the Indian Agricultural Analysis Institute’s regional station in Wellington in Tamil Nadu. Outstanding tall varieties chosen throughout this era have been named NP-200, NP-201, and NP-202. These varieties, nonetheless, have been liable to lodging (bending or breaking) as a result of their peak. Vital progress was made in 1997 when the College of Agricultural Sciences, Dharwad, developed DDK1001, the world’s first semi-dwarf dicoccum wheat selection.
By the late Nineteen Sixties, a number of semi-dwarf dicoccum wheat varieties, launched beneath the All India Coordinated Analysis Venture (AICRP) on wheat and barley, started changing the standard tall Indian dicoccum varieties.
“The DDK (Dharwad Dryland Kharif) varieties, specifically 1025, 1029, and 1063, are semi-dwarf, are immune to black and brown rust with exhausting elongated and red-coloured grains. It’s grown in components of northern Karnataka, southern Maharashtra, coastal villages of Gujarat, small areas of Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh,” says Suma S. Biradar, principal scientist (Genetics & Plant Breeding) and head, AICRP on Wheat MARS (Foremost Agricultural Analysis Station), College of Agricultural Sciences, Dharwad. “In Karnataka, Khapli is barely 2% of the whole wheat space. It’s primarily used for making roti/chappati, bhakri, khakra, porridge, breads, desserts, and even conventional sweets like laddoos.”
Following the event of the DDK collection of Khapli wheat varieties, the Agharkar Analysis Institute, Pune, a key centre for wheat analysis and breeding in India, launched its personal vary of improved wheat cultivars beneath the MACS designation. The MACS varieties have been bred for improved yield, illness resistance, dietary high quality, and flexibility, constructing on the legacy of earlier Khapli wheat enhancements.
The latest Khapli selection cultivated by farmers in Rahuri taluka of Ahilyanagar (previously Ahmednagar) district is Nilgiri Khapli (HW 1098), a semi-dwarf dicoccum wheat selection identified for its excessive yield and illness resistance.
A wholesome grain
Emmer wheat presents important dietary advantages, primarily as a result of its excessive fibre content material, antioxidant compounds, simply digestible protein, and resistant starch, together with its gradual carbohydrate digestion. Its well being advantages are motivating native farmers to develop it not just for private consumption but additionally for area of interest markets in search of conventional and wholesome grains.
In keeping with Kurban Tadavai, District Superintendent Agricultural Officer and Venture Director of the Agricultural Expertise Administration Company (ATMA), Jalgaon has emerged as a hub for Khapli wheat cultivation. The grain is now grown on roughly 1,500 acres throughout the talukas of Raver, Chopda, Parola, Dharangaon, Muktainagar, and Yaval within the district. “Khapli wheat seeds can be found at 12 centres within the district. The agriculture division has made preparations to make sure the provision of high quality seeds. Farmers are inspired to make use of licensed seeds for higher yield and illness resistance,” he says.
Whereas farmers like Vaishali Patil started cultivating Khapli wheat motivated by its well being advantages, a rising variety of cultivators, similar to 45-year-old Milind Shah, are recognising its financial and ecological promise. A resident of Chahardi village in Jalgaon’s Chopda taluk, Shah started rising Khapli in 2020, sourcing seeds from a pioneering farmer in close by Raver. He has continued ever since. “I harvest a formidable 12 to fifteen quintals per acre,” he says. “Khapli is the meals of the elite, priced at ₹80 per kg, in comparison with bread wheat at ₹30.” Scooping up a handful of soil, he provides, “When cultivated utilizing totally natural strategies, Khapli has a exceptional skill to counterpoint the soil’s carbon content material.”
Regardless of its rising demand and well being attraction, Khapli wheat faces a key bottleneck: processing. Its labour-intensive threshing has lengthy deterred wider adoption. “In contrast to free-threshing varieties like durum or widespread wheat, the place the outer layers separate simply, Khapli’s spikelets stay intact. Threshing requires larger drive and extra steps like hand threshing, flailing, or soaking to loosen the grains,” explains Vijendra Baviskar, a wheat agronomist with the ICAR-AICRP on Wheat on the Agharkar Analysis Institute in Pune.
With its local weather resilience, dietary worth, and soil-building capability, Khapli wheat presents greater than heritage — it presents a path to sustainable farming. Realising this potential, nonetheless, would require focused efforts in seed accessibility, farmer incentives, and widespread consciousness.
Learn extra: The hidden facet of millet farming
Banner picture: A farmer exhibits a pattern of his Khapli harvest. Picture by particular association.
