A grainy mobile-phone clip shot at Revati Sule's -- Baramati MP Supriya Sule's daughter -- wedding reception in Delhi this week has done more for jackfruit than three decades of agricultural extension work.
In the video, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is seen leaning forward, visibly absorbed, as a young man beside Sharad Pawar shows him something on his phone and hands over a set of documents.
The young man is
Mithilesh Desai, a farmer from Jhapade village in Lanja taluka, Ratnagiri district, whom Konkan now calls its 'Jackfruit King'.
For Desai it was the culmination of a much longer and lonelier journey -- one that began with his father selling jackfruit by the roadside for a few paise a kilo, at a time when the fruit was seen as Konkan's poor cousin to the mango.
India remains the world's largest producer of jackfruit, harvesting well over a million tonnes a year, yet a large share of it has traditionally gone to waste for want of processing and a market.
Desai, a trained agricultural engineer who walked away from a promising shot at the civil services, has spent over a decade trying to change that arithmetic -- one flour packet, one seed, one leather bag at a time. Here, he tells
Prasanna D Zore/Rediff what he told the prime minister, and what he hopes comes of it.
