Udupi: ‘Mattugulla’ Receives Long Sought GI Certificate

By Inchara-Kaup
Daijiworld Media Network—Udupi (RD)

Udupi, Nov 28: The local variety of brinjal widely grown across the district and popularly known in the vernacular as ‘Mattugulla’ was awarded the GI Certificate by the Geographical Indication Registry of the union government, in Chennai.

The Certificate GI Number – 100 and Certificate number – 158 was presented to the Mattugulla Growers’ Union by the state horticulture department here on Saturday November 26.

The indigenous variety of Mattugulla is grown on about 500 acres of land in the coastal district, especially at Mattu, Kaipunjal, and Pangala that comes under Kaup legislative assembly constituency.  The peasants grow Mattugulla along with paddy in their farms, to supplement their income.

The peasants staged a struggle to sustain their indigenous variety of Mattugulla when the Indian variety of brinjal was under threat from the BT in the country.  The growers united to seek GI Certificate from the union ministry.

Peasant leaders Ram Rao and Laxman Mattu thanked the union ministry for issuing the GI certificate to their local variety of brinjal.