Like hotcakes: King chillies fly off the shelves at Seiyhama festival

KOHIMA — The third edition of the ‘Organic King Chilli’ (Naga mircha) Festival 2024 in Seiyhama village under Kohima district witnessed heavy rush of buyers as hundreds of kilogram of fresh raja mircha got sold out within few hours of inaugurating the festival held at the village council hall on Friday.

With a population of 1282 from 432 households, Seiyhama village has been gaining momentum with its ‘organic’ growth of raja mircha and its festival since its inception in 2022. Located 42 km away from the state capital, people from near and far flocked to the festival site to buy fresh raja mircha.

But the journey to cultivate this GI-tagged product of Nagaland raja mircha was not without challenges for farmers. The village council chairman and convenor of organising committee, Lhoulalie Zumu, shared that prior to the introduction of the festival two years ago, market linkages was one major challenge.

Initially, everyone cultivated for their own consumption as they did not have much idea about marketing them. Farmers would sell their raja mircha in Kohima in lump sum at a low price despite all the hard work involved in cultivating it. Sensing this challenge faced by the villagers, Zumu decided to introduce the festival in the hope for a better market.

The festival eventually helped the farmers not only in creating a market for their produce but people came to know more about the village through it. He endorsed that their raja mircha is of good quality and hotter. This has attracted the people to come to the village and to their fields to buy them.

“Now, the farmers could sell them at a good price. Some families are also sending their kids to study outside the village. Because of Naga mircha, they are able to maintain their kitchen,” he said.

In the 2022 festival, 119 houses cultivated the King Chilli for the festival. However, the household has been increased to about 150 this year, he informed while adding that more villagers are expressing their interest to cultivate it and had started identifying jhum fields to start.

Unlike generating nearly an overall sale of INR 2 crore in the year 2022, the crops were spoiled in 2023 and the festival was a low key affair, he said and expressed hope that this year’s return will be good.

Kelhousilie Thevo, treasure of organising committee, assured that products from Seiyhama are ‘purely organic’ be it vegetables or raja mircha. He explained the process and cycle of planting and cultivating raja mircha by the villagers.

This year, he said, 148 households are cultivating raja mircha and is expecting to harvest 14,0000 kg, which if converted would amount to INR 70 lakh.

Inaugurating the festival, director of Horticulture, Meyasashi, said that farming is very important because people from the state are mainly engaged in farming. He stated that the Agri allied department is trying its best to promote farmers through various schemes.

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