Mangaluru: A two-day ‘jackfruit festival’ was inaugurated in Mangaluru on Saturday.

Shree Padre, an expert working on jackfruit promotion in the country said that exploring the potential of value addition to jackfruit is the need of the hour. India is not present in the map of value-added jackfruit products except few States such as Maharashtra, Kerala and Karnataka, not much progress has been made with respect to value addition to jackfruit in the country.

Kerala, which has included value-addition to jackfruit in its agriculture policy, has allocated fund for this purpose, Padre said.

Speaking at the inauguration, he said that some of the countries such as Vietnam and Malaysia have made tremendous progress in this regard.

Stressing the need for a national-level institute to promote jackfruit in the country, he said no effort has been made in this regard till now.