Going bananas over plantain flour

It’s a development that has caught even the Primary Minister’s attention. During his recent ‘Mann Ki Baat’ PM Narendra Modi spoke about how homemakers in Karnataka are getting ready distinctive dishes with banana flour, replacing wheat and maida.

Plantain flour — made with inexperienced bananas — is not new to the region, obtaining been employed as little one foodstuff and as a dietary complement for the aged.

Nonetheless, what is new is the way homemakers are now making use of the flour in novel means, dishing up chapatis, gulab jamun, noodles and barfi among the other items.

Jackfruit activist Shree Padre has been partly liable for the region heading bananas over plantain flour. It all started when Padre posted a several strains about Jayambika, a homemaker from Thrissur, in a WhatsApp group of farmers. When she observed there was minimal desire for bananas, Jayambika purchased numerous bunches and powdered them and marketed them. Jeesy George of Alleppy Krishi Vijnan Kendra guided her in the preparation of the powder.

Encouraged by this put up, Nayana Anand, a homemaker from Tumakuru in Karnataka, much too powdered the plantain developing in her backyard and tried out distinctive dishes with it.

Padre posted Nayana’s working experience and it went viral. Several began experimenting with it and building new dishes.

According to Padre, extra than a hundred households have taken up the preparation of banana flour in the earlier a single thirty day period, showing the enormous opportunity it has.

He said banana flour preparation is particularly relevant in belts where farmers experience glut in output or where good quality problems inhibit sale. It takes just 3 times to transform inexperienced bananas into flour and consequently a perishable commodity can be converted into a for a longer period use item.

Quick to put together

Two spoons of salt have to be additional to a diluted rice starch remedy. Green banana, right after peeling, has to be soaked in this remedy for 10 minutes, right after which it can be sliced and sun dried. A typical mixer grinder at home was employed by the farmers to powder it to put together the flour.

According to Padre, plantain flour could be a viable micro company for farmers, and cited the example of Ajjappa Kulagod, a farmer from Belagavi district, who has started manufacturing it and advertising and marketing it domestically.

He claims the extra formidable could established up micro flour mills which could assistance both of those the farmer as properly as the entrepreneur and provide neighborhood work. All that such a device demands by way of financial commitment is a slicer, a drier and a pulveriser. It definitely appears like an concept to get floured about.