Encouraging the farmers for producing Makhana may lead to develop daily healthy diets and increase the average life span of people – Nihar Ranjan Bhuyan
For centuries, makhana, the popped seed of the prickly water lily Euryale ferox, known in English as fox nut, was a modest fixture of Mithila's ponds and kitchens, harvested through back-breaking labour and sold largely through informal trade. Today it is being spoken of in the same breath as India's most promising agricultural exports, with policymakers coining the term "Makhananomics" to describe the economic ecosystem building up around it. Backed by government funding, a dedicated regulatory board, a Geographical Indication tag, and surging global demand for plant-based snacks, makhana is emerging as one of India's more compelling stories of a niche traditional crop scaling into an organised, export-oriented industry.
A crop finds its moment
Makhana's rise rests on a fortunate convergence of nutrition science and consumer trends. The seed is prized for being high in protein and carbohydrates while low in fat, gluten-free, and rich in minerals, attributes that align neatly with the global appetite for "clean label," plant-based snacking. What was once sold mainly as a religious offering or a fasting-day food in North India has been repackaged as roasted, flavoured makhana snacks lining supermarket shelves from Mumbai to Manhattan.
India's dominance in this crop is close to total. The country accounts for roughly 90 per cent of global makhana supply, producing well over 100,000 metric tonnes of raw seed annually, which translates into tens of thousands of tonnes of popped makhana. Bihar alone contributes somewhere between 85 and 90 per cent of national output, concentrated in the Mithilanchal and Seemanchal regions, districts such as Madhubani, Darbhanga, Sitamarhi, Saharsa, Purnia and Katihar, where generations of the Banpar community have specialised in the demanding work of harvesting and processing the crop.
Policy push
The turning point for the sector's formal recognition came in the Union Budget 2025-26, when the government announced the creation of a National Makhana Board with an initial outlay of Rs 100 crore. Formally launched in Bihar in September 2025, the Board's mandate spans the entire value chain, farmer training, research and improved seed varieties, processing infrastructure, quality standards, branding and export promotion. It builds on earlier recognition: Mithila Makhana received its Geographical Indication tag in 2022, and the crop has since been designated Bihar's flagship product under the One District One Product scheme.
The institutional support has deepened further with a Central Sector Scheme for the Development of Makhana, carrying a total outlay of Rs 476 crore through 2030-31, with Rs 30 crore approved for 2025-26 and Rs 90 crore for 2026-27. Early results from these schemes are already visible: over 1,000 additional hectares have been brought under cultivation, dozens of front-line demonstrations of improved production technology have been conducted, and thousands of farmers have benefited from training and seed distribution through the National Research Centre for Makhana.
Trade facilitation has followed the same trajectory. A separate Harmonised System (HS) code for makhana came into effect under the Finance Bill 2025, allowing the crop to be tracked and traded internationally as a distinct commodity rather than folded into generic categories. This matters more than it might appear, dedicated codes make it possible to negotiate trade terms, monitor export performance, and build country-specific market access strategies. The results are showing up in the data: India exported more than 7,000 metric tonnes of makhana and value-added products to over 20 countries, including the United States, the Middle East and parts of Africa, in FY26. In a symbolically significant milestone, the Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA) facilitated the first commercial sea shipment of GI-tagged Mithila Makhana,18 metric tonnes, from Bihar to Australia, sourced from growers in Darbhanga district.
Industry estimates suggest the sector could be worth Rs 11,000-12,000 crore by 2029-30, driven by demand from the US, UK, Canada, UAE and Australia. Cultivation area nationally has expanded from around 25,000 hectares to nearly 40,000 hectares between 2020 and 2025, a 40-50 per cent jump that reflects both rising demand and active state-level promotion beyond Bihar.
The Northeast's untapped opportunity
While Bihar remains the undisputed centre of India's makhana economy, the crop's potential extends well beyond Mithila, and Assam is increasingly part of that conversation. Makhana grows wild in a number of Assam's beels, or floodplain wetlands, though commercial harvesting has historically been limited to a handful of water bodies. Northeast India as a whole holds around 41.5 per cent of the country's floodplain wetland resources, with Assam alone accounting for roughly 100,000 hectares of such wetlands, an ecological asset that has traditionally supported fisheries but remains largely underutilised for aquatic cash crops like makhana.
That is beginning to change. Assam's Agriculture Minister, Pijush Hazarika, told the state Assembly recently that the government intends to give special focus to makhana cultivation, citing the state's climate as well suited to the crop: makhana requires annual rainfall between 1,000 and 2,500 mm, and Assam receives around 2,000 mm on average, putting most of the state within a favourable range. The minister pointed to the potential for farmers to earn between Rs 2.4 lakh and Rs 2.5 lakh per bigha annually, a figure that, if realised at scale, would represent a meaningful income diversification option for wetland communities. The state government is reportedly exploring makhana cultivation across nearly 1,000 beels, in coordination with the Fisheries Department, with an eye toward allowing fish farmers to cultivate makhana and raise fish in the same water body simultaneously.
Cultivation is already under way in nine districts viz. Kamrup, Sribhumi, Darrang, Biswanath, Dibrugarh, Morigaon, Dhubri and Baksa among them, and a private processing unit has begun operations in Sonapur, giving farmers a local avenue for value addition rather than having to sell raw seed to traders from Bihar. The minister has since visited processing and cultivation sites in Kamrup and Darrang to assess infrastructure gaps directly, signalling that the state's interest extends beyond an assembly announcement.
The opportunity for Assam is genuine but comes with real caveats. Makhana harvesting and processing remain skill-intensive and physically demanding work, historically the preserve of specialist communities from Bihar who migrate seasonally to states including Assam, Odisha and West Bengal to pop seed harvested locally, a pattern researchers note has meant that raw makhana from the Northeast has often been transported out for processing rather than value-added within the region. Building a durable local processing ecosystem, rather than remaining a raw-material feeder to Bihar's units, will determine whether Assam captures the more lucrative end of the value chain or simply supplies its bulk seed elsewhere.
Potential and payoff
The structural challenges that have long plagued the sector have not disappeared with policy attention. Price volatility, an unorganised and often informal trade network, inadequate cold storage and processing capacity, and heavy dependence on manual, labour-intensive harvesting remains persistent constraints, issues the Makhana Board and allied schemes are explicitly designed to address through farmer producer organisations, mechanisation support, and closer research linkages with institutions like ICAR and Bihar Agricultural University. There have also been longstanding demands from Bihar's farming community for a Minimum Support Price to protect growers from the price swings that have historically pushed many into debt despite the crop's high market value.
For a crop that until recently was seen as a regional curiosity, makhana's trajectory now mirrors that of other Indian agricultural products, tea, spices, basmati rice, that moved from local cultivation to global branding through a combination of GI protection, state investment and export infrastructure. Whether that trajectory extends meaningfully into Assam's wetlands, turning an ecological asset into an economic one, will be one of the more interesting agricultural stories to watch out of the Northeast in the coming years.
(The writer can be reached at niharranjanbhuyan4176@gmail.com)