Mrs.Rema Unnikrishnan, Karippalakizhakkethil, Pazhanjiyoorkonam, Patoor P O, Nooranaad, is a house wife and ADS (Kudumbasree) chairperson of her ward who had a passion in agriculture as well as in cooking. Under the ATMA technology training programe she participated in a training programe on value addition of homestead crops at KVK and started producing jams, pickles and squash based on fruits and vegetables available in her homestead. During the Jackfruit season she attended one more training in value addition of jackfruit at the KVK and realized the scope of jackfruit flour based products. Jackfruit is plenty in her surroundings and normally being wasted every year. She organized a meeting of women group under her ADS and requested them to provide her dried fruitlets and seeds of jackfruit for nominal price. The women groups agreed and provided her dried pods at the rate Rs.100/ kg. The dried fruitlets were powdered and a wide variety of traditional wafers and breakfast dishes were prepared. She engaged six women from her village to help her in the production and packing of products. Other than from the jackfruit flour, she prepares a number of products by utilizing rind and strands of un-ripened and ripened jackfruits, and seeds. All these products have got a very good acceptance among the consumers. She participated in fairs and exhibitions throughout the state. After knowing about her achievements in this sector, a leading daily in Malayalam named Mathrubhumi published her story in their series of article on relevance of value addition of Jackfruit and got a statewide coverage. People from all over Kerala contacted her through phone and visited her unit to know about the activities. T V channels like Dooradarsan, Jeevan T V, and local channels reported her activities on jackfruit value addition. She is invited as resource person by many organizations to handle trainings on value addition of Jackfruit. Various organizations honored her after knowing about her success story through Medias.
So far she has processed more than 12 tons of Jackfruit and after providing wages to six ladies she could earn an amount of Rs.30000 to 40000 monthly. Recently she has been elected as the Block Panchayath member of Bharanikkavu Block and she is the Standing Committee Chairperson of Health and education. Since she is busy with the responsibilities of the Block Panchayath member, she entrusted the activities of the unit to her son, a BCA graduate for continuing the activities and he is planning to commercialize the production with the help of machineries and waiting financial support from KFC for an amount of Rs.25 lakhs for installing equipments and machineries.
