Chennai, July 5 (BPNS)
The Tamil Nadu Agricultural and Marketing Board and the Chettikulam Small Onion farmers producers association, Perambalur have filed an application for Geographical Indication (GI) tag for the Chettikulam small onion.
NABARD- Madurai Agri-Business Incubation Form is the facilitator for this application. The applicants said that this particular onion is cultivated in Chettikulam village, Allathur block in Perambalur district of Tamil Nadu.
The small onion in this area has around 15-18 layers of dried outer scales and has a shelf life of 8 to 9 months. 70,000 tonnes of small onions are produced in 12,500 hectares of land area in this place. The high sulphur content in this region, this particular onion has the highest pungency taste.
The Ministry of Food Processing Industries has been on the ‘Mission Onion Programme’ for doubling the farmer’s income by 2022. The Ministry has established a Common Food Processing Incubation Centre at Chettikulam village to address the issue of small onion farmers.
Interestingly farmers of the region give a small quantity of onion after crop as an offering to the Lord Murugan temple of the area.
