Leh berry loses juice

According to sources, the Phayang unit, near Leh, had to wind up operations after the local hill council accused its owners of ‘‘duping gullible farmers’’ and making money by ‘‘exploiting tribals’’.

‘‘A large number of farmers who are supposed to have been paid dividends by the company are just fake names,’’ alleged Spaldan, chairman of the Ladakh Autonomous Hill Developmental Council (LAHDC).

Consequently, he said, the council had withdrawn the lease on the land for the plant set up by Ladakh Foods as a joint venture with the Agriculture Ministry’s Small Farmers’ Agri-Business Consortium (SFABC) and NAFED.

Talking to The Indian Express, D N Mittal of Ladakh Foods said that he would fight the LAHDC’s ‘‘arbitrary’’ ruling in a court of law. ‘‘I’ll buy the berry from Mongolia, China, Canada if I have to, to keep the brand alive,’’ he said.

The juice of the Leh berry, a tiny yellow fruit that grows wild in Ladakh, contains 100 vital nutrients and a huge dose of Vitamin C. It found immediate acceptance in the healthfood market, thanks largely to the Indian Army’s Defence Research and Developmental Organisation (DRDO), which cracked the preservation formula.

Mittal’s plans of sourcing the fruit from elsewhere, however, may come to nought. Sources in the Union Agriculture Ministry said that China—the largest cultivator of the seabuckthorn—is trying to tap Indian growers.

China and Germany are reportedly extracting a curative oil from the berry, a litre of which sells for a whopping $15,000.

P K Aggarwal, managing director of the SAFBC, which has a stake in the plant, said he was ‘‘worried’’ about Ladakhi farmers who have invested in the project.

‘‘It is not only about the closure of a business venture. The Leh berry juice must come into the market since the project is linked to the development of Ladakh,’’ he said.

To add another twist to the tale, the Ladakh hill council has declared that farmers would no longer sell the fruit to any outsider.

‘‘We have organised cooperatives of farmers, and in the future, we will only sell the pulp of the fruit to manufacturers,’’ Spaldan said, adding that there was no dearth of offers since ‘‘Ladakh’s berry is considered the most nutritive of all the species grown in India’’.