Why farmers in Maharashtra are making fruit cakes

Krishnat Patil from Kagal in Kolhapur district celebrated his son’s birthday in a distinctive way, with a distinctive message. He and his household geared up a cake utilizing watermelon, pineapple, grapes and orange alternatively of buying a cake from a bakery. The message was loud and clear — farmers must make their personal cake and also market place it.

Farmers, particularly fruit growers, are location a trend, what they phone ‘a movement’ to popularise birthday cakes manufactured up of layers of new watermelon, papaya and musk melon, and decorated with cream, strawberries, grapes and mango slices.

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Cultivating a taste for novelty

“Fruit growers have suffered seriously in the latest occasions owing to lockdown and now traders are purchasing the generate at lower prices stating there would be an additional series of lockdowns. Farmers are getting the least expensive price for the generate and consequently some farmers have started off this trend of fruit cake. It is catching up on social media and farmers are getting a superior response” says agriculture analyst Deepak Chavan.

Farmer Haribhau Mahajan from Nashik insists that not just birthdays but all situations should be celebrated in this way. He gifted a fruit cake to Sonali and Sagar Wadnerkar to celebrate their marriage anniversary and the pair was delighted to mark the occasion in a novel, and nutritious, way.

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WHO recommendation

‘Hoy Amhi Shetkari’ organisation has announced a fruit cake competition with the affliction that the contributors should develop a cake utilizing fruits and vegetables available in their personal localities.

Farmers are projecting fruit cakes as a nutritious alternative to baked cakes and are campaigning for their new product or service. The WHO panel on diet regime, nutrition and prevention of long-term illnesses has advised a everyday intake of at least four hundred grams (or five everyday servings with an typical serving measurement of eighty gm) of fruits and vegetables, excluding potatoes, cassava and other starchy tubers, to avert diet regime-similar long-term illnesses and micronutrient deficiencies.

“The lockdown has genuinely strike really hard and farmers will have to come across new means to market their solutions utilizing new advertising and marketing units. Farmers will have to choose handle in primary, secondary and tertiary sectors, only then can farming be worthwhile,” says farmer Sanjay Chavan.