Impacts of Covid-19 on Makhana(Euryale ferox Salisb.) Food Industry in India

Makhana or gorgon nut has popular and nutrition rich pop across India and many parts of the world.In the light of the recent makhana food production, there is now considerable concern about the crop management, processing and marketing of makhana pop. Due to Covid-19 spread, many agriculture sectors in India as well as in the World werebadly affected because of restriction of movement of workers, changes in demand of consumers and restricted food tradepolicies and financial instability. Hence, the objective of this present experiment was to assess elaborately about impacts of Covid-19 spread on the production and marketing system of makhana.

Crop management system was monitored and problems were detected by field visits and taking observations.The sample size was >10 at each location for market analysis. Multistage random sampling at each stage and ‘Conventional method’ were adopted for per cent loss and gain.

According to August-2020 survey, Covid-19 spread and subsequent lock-down situation in India might reducethe total makhana production due to less labor involvement in the production process and would have adverse effect inthe marketing system as well as on the export balance in the international market. Accordingly, a case study was also performed from the farmer field of Manigachhi, Darbhanga, Bihar, where crop losses occur from leaf blight due to improper crop management during lock-down situations and they farmers felt an existing weak marketing system. However, during thesecond survey in November (2020), it was evident that makhana industry got an sudden and impulsive change, due to increase in mass awareness about makhana as a nutrition dense medicinal food and immune booster. Early negative impact of Covid-19 was redressed and finally the makhana food industry became profitable on account of having medicinal and pharmaceutical value.