Context:

The Bihar government has urged the Centre to declare the Minimum Support Price (MSP) for Makhana.

More on the news

• The state has also flagged a “lack” of manpower at the Darbhanga-based Indian Council of Agricultural Research — National Research Centre (ICAR-NRC) for Makhana and told the Centre it was in “bad shape”.
  ICAR-NRC was added in 2002 for the Conservation, Research & Development of the makhana crop. Later, in 2005, the National Research Centre (NRC) for Makhana was merged and brought under the ICAR-Research Complex for Eastern Region (RCER), Patna. Consequently, “national” tag of the NRC for Makhana was revoked which was restored in 2023.

About Makhana

• It is also known as Gorgon nut or Fox nut and is grown in stagnant perennial water bodies like ponds, land depressions, oxbow lakes, swamps and ditches. 
• Its seeds are also called Black diamonds. It is a plant of tropical and subtropical climate. 
• It requires 200 C to 350 C temperature, relative humidity of 50% to 90% and annual rainfall of 100 cm to 250 cm.
• is considered as a native of South-East Asia and China, but distributed to almost every part of the world.
• Bihar's Mithila Makhana has been awarded the Geographical Indication (GI) Tag by the Union Government in 2022.
• About 85 per cent of the country’s makhana production comes from Bihar, where about 10 lakh people are directly or indirectly involved in its cultivation and production process.
• India is the largest producer followed by China.