Cucumber Festival of Aliba Village: Harvesting Joy
The Cucumber Festival is a vibrant and unique celebration that honors one of nature’s most refreshing and versatile gifts – the cucumber. Cucumbers have been cultivated for thousands of years and were valued for their cooling properties and culinary versatility. The Cucumber Festival of Aliba Village began in the year 2022 on 11th May. It is held for two days at Aliba Village Mokokchung, Nagaland. This festival is the first festival to promote cucumber cultivation and also the first ever cucumber festival in India. It is joined by neighboring villages as well. This festival is organized by ATMA Nagaland Department of Agriculture, Urban Home Solution Kohima, Eastern Agro Marketing Agencies Guwahati Assam and EASTMAN CAST & FORGE Ltd Ludhiana Punjab. The festival held in 2022 featured farmer-scientist interaction with KVK Mokokchung. Farmers from the surrounding villages like Sattsu, Kinunger, Chungtia, Mangkolemba and Tuli also participated in the festival.
Since the first Cucumber festival celebrated has been successful, many families have been cultivating cucumbers and this is a positive attitude from all to look forward to. The festival was celebrated in 2023 as well on May 9th and 10th.
It has been stated that the origin of the concept on Cucumber festival goes back to 1985 because it was during that time that the Aliba villagers began practicing off-season cucumber plantation. However, such practice had been disappearing recently so six individuals who had agriculture experience with affiliated background together with Lipokmar, Toshimongla Kichu, Temjentola, Alemtoshi Kichu, Chaso and Suponglemba decided to preserve it and encourage villagers to continue cultivating the cucumbers. It is said because of declaring the cucumber festival celebration 38 families had already been sowing and taking care to take part in the festival. This was such a good response from the people. Although the festival was to be celebrated for the first time, it turned out larger and more influential than expected. They even received large number of sponsors which aided in successfully executing the plan.
The farmers not only get to participate and enjoy the festival but since the festival organizers took care of the logistics, it exempted the farmers from wasting money, energy and time to search for customers to sell or search for markets to sell their cucumbers. This also created easy accessibility for many to come and buy fresh organic cucumbers. Moreover, this festival helped many villagers in their income, specially in supporting their children’s education. All the villagers worked really hard to have a good harvest and earn for their livelihood. During this time, not only cucumbers are sold but also agricultural tools are sold along with youths getting opportunity to open stalls and earn as well.
Apart from earning by selling the cucumbers during the festival, many other groups, artisans also got chance to display their work and sell their goods. It is said that other cultivators like Shiitake mushroom, earned as well as people who fished used to sell fish cooked in bamboo and sold other local handicrafts too. The festival generated an income of approximately INR 40 lakh by selling cucumber alone for the villagers in the year 2022. Moreover, through this cucumber festival, it made the farmers innovative in many ways. As cultivating cucumber is not an easy task, they started to create different methods like trip irrigation, and discovered that water pumps can reduce labor intensity.
Further, it is with the dream that celebrating such festivals can help farmers focus on profits earned by themselves through their hardwork and not wholly depending on the government. Other than that, it is with hope that such measures can help increase productivity, promote Agri-tourism, along with providing platform and opportunity for local entreprenuers to set forth into marketing as well.
The cucumber festival was such a great opportunity for the unemployed youths because many unemployed groups formed groups and invested in cultivating cucumbers. Youths are slowly becoming interested in agriculture because of the farmer-farmer and scientist-scientist interactions and it paved a way to gain knowledge about agriculture. In addition to that because of the festival, the government has recognized the initiative and are now supporting farmers in the villages by providing machinery like water pumps.
In the future this will help and encourage farmers to become self-reliant through cultivation of cucumber, increase number of cultivation using only organic manure which will also more farmers to be involved in cultivation.
The Cucumber Festival held this year 2023 has also been a great success, through the off-season cucumber cultivation it has improved the economic condition of the villagers. It has provided great and vital insights on how agriculture is so much reliable and we should direct our attention in preserving, engaging and spreading it. Thе Cucumbеr Fеstival is morе than just a cеlеbration of a vеgеtablе; it is a cеlеbration of community, culturе, and naturе’s abundant gifts. This vibrant еvеnt brings pеoplе togеthеr, fostеring a sеnsе of unity and pridе in local traditions. As thе fеstival begins and continuеs to еvolvе and gain popularity, it sеrvеs as a rеmindеr of thе importancе of chеrishing and prеsеrving thе cultural hеritagе associatеd with our food and thе simplе joys that naturе providеs.
