The Darjeeling district horticulture department is promoting strawberry cultivation in the hills by asking tourists to pluck the fruit.

Titled “Pick your own strawberry”, the programme is fast gaining popularity with groups of tourists, especially those staying in homestays near strawberry plantations.

Tourists regularly visit plantations, pluck the fruit and keep the fruits in perforated containers, and then buy what they have plucked.

“Strawberries are seen as an exotic fruit with immense appeal among tourists. They want to enjoy the taste of the fruit and click their photos at strawberry plantations amid idyllic hilly landscapes,” said Debojit Basak, the food processing industries and horticulture officer of Darjeeling.

He said that so far, his department has distributed around five lakh strawberry saplings among 100-odd farmers in different blocks of Darjeeling like Kurseong (Chimney and Deorali areas), Darjeeling-Pulbazar (Kaijalay, Relling, Lodhoma-II areas) and Jorebunglow-Sukhiapokhri (Pokhriabong-I and Permaguri areas).

“These farmers have successfully carried out cultivation of the fruit and have a steady market now. To popularise the fruit, we facilitate tourist visits to their plantations. The ambience tourists to pluck strawberries on their own,” added Basak.

The Darjeeling hills, horticulturists said, have congenial weather for many cash crops like strawberries. Here, two varieties, the ‘June-bearing’ variety and the ‘Year-round’ variety are fast gaining popularity, they said.

Tourists can see the strawberry plantations and click photos for free, Basak said.

“Then, if any tourist wants to taste the strawberries, he would be provided with perforated plastic boxes in which he can keep the strawberries he has plucked. A container full of strawberries would cost around ₹150 to ₹250, depending on the season,” said the official.

Alok Pradhan, a strawberry farmer based in Kurseong subdivision, said tourists turned up every day.

“In the initial year, I could harvest around 25,000 kilos of the fruit. Now, tourists have also started visiting my place to pluck and buy my strawberries,” he said.

Alok, who is making a livelihood out of this cash crop, has started processing the fruit to make jam, jellies and syrups. “I have started merchandising these products. They have a steady demand,” the farmer said.