Araku Valley
More actions
| Araku Valley | |
|---|---|
| Araku agency, Visakha agency | |
| ActiveRecorded as grown here since 2000 | |
| Hierarchy | |
| Gene Pool | South Asian Gene Pool |
| Growing Region | Eastern Ghats |
| Geography | |
| Country | India |
| Province/State | Andhra Pradesh |
| District | Alluri Sitharama Raju District |
| Coordinates | 18.33, 82.88 |
| Landscape | |
| Area | 6,600 km² |
| Terrain | Approximately Alluri Sitharama Raju District; hills of the Eastern Ghats at about 900 m |
| Growing history | |
| Dated news reports | 2016 |
| Documentation | |
| Appellations | 0 |
| Accessions | 1 |
| Conservation | |
| Populations | none documented yet |
Araku Valley is a landrace cannabis growing area in the Eastern Ghats of Andhra Pradesh, India, drawn on Alluri Sitharama Raju District. In 2019 The Hans India, writing of the "Araku agency", reported ganja on over 10,000 acres in 200 villages of the Visakha agency areas; most of the villages of the Munchingput, Pedabayalu, Chinthapalli, G. Madugula and G.K. Veedhi mandals were producing it.[1]
Geography
Alluri Sitharama Raju District is hill country of the Eastern Ghats at an altitude of about 900 m, with several peaks above 1,200 m and a forest block that rises to 1,615 m across its 11 mandals: Ananthagiri, Araku Valley, Dumbriguda, Hukumpeta, Munchingput, Pedabayalu, Paderu, G. Madugula, Chinthapalli, G.K. Veedhi and Koyyuru. The district was formed in 2022 from the Paderu revenue division of Visakhapatnam District and the Rampachodavaram revenue division. On 31 December 2025, 12 of its mandals went to the new Polavaram District, and the remaining 11 stayed in Alluri Sitharama Raju District, with their headquarters at Paderu.[2] "Agency area" is a term often used for tribal habitation in the foothills of the Eastern Ghats.[3]
Cultivation
In the 1890s
K. Narainaswamy, Inspector of Police at Vizianagram, told the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission in 1893 that his duties took him over Vizagapatam district and its Agency tracts. The plant was "cultivated chiefly in the hills", the ganja supplied to the contractors came from the Agency tracts, and "The hill people cultivate for export to the plains". He had seen it in small open fields and in yards behind houses on the hills. His "general impression" was that it was grown in only about a quarter of the Agency villages, and not extensively there: in three or four yards out of ten.[4] The Madras Abkari Act then regulated the sale of the hemp drugs, and in the Vizagapatam Agency it applied in only four villages. In the rest of the Agency tracts the cultivation of the plant and the traffic in the drugs were "left uncontrolled".[5]
Since 2000
In 2016 the Andhra Pradesh Excise Department counted 149 villages growing ganja in the Paderu, Puttu, Madugula, Peda Bayalu, Chintapalli, G.K. Veedhi, Hukumpeta, Ananthagiri and Koyyuru areas of Visakhapatnam district, most of them tribal areas where excise officers could not go without paramilitary support. Growers planted up to 5,000 plants to the acre, each yielding 250 to 300 grams, according to the department.[6] Excise officials and the district police destroyed 3,200 acres of the crop in the years before 2019.[1]
The News Minute reported in 2021 that ganja had been grown in the agency for over four decades and had become widespread only in the previous 15 years. A grower told the paper that the crop is sown around June and July and harvested six months later, between November and January. The plots are usually near streams, and police drone operators search both banks.[3]
Eradication
An excise operation in 2017 destroyed about 3,000 acres. Operation Parivarthana, run by the Andhra Pradesh Police and the Special Enforcement Bureau from 30 October 2021, used drones to find the plots and hired local men to cut the plants. By early December it had destroyed more than 6,000 acres, with the crops of about 250 tribal hamlets.[3]
ETV Bharat reported in 2025 that cultivation which had once spread across 11,000 acres in the hills of the Visakhapatnam and Alluri districts had been brought to near zero. After field surveys and drone surveillance in July and August 2023 all plantations were destroyed, and none was seen in the following December–January season. The campaign took in 375 villages of the Chinthapalli, G. Madugula, Koyyuru, Paderu, G.K. Veedhi, Munchingput and Pedabayalu mandals, where more than 10,000 farmers were given saplings of fruit and other trees in place of ganja.[7] The district's alternative-crop programme covered 29,979 farmers on 29,839 acres in 2025–26, and the Visakhapatnam Range police destroyed 0.10 acres of ganja in 2025.[8]
Varieties
Onmanorama reported in 2016 that the Andhra Pradesh ganja varieties had names such as Seelavathi, Rajahamsa and Kalapathri, and described Seelavathi as a hybrid of the Idukki variety from Kerala and "the next best thing available to the ganja peddlers who tried to create an Idukki in Andhra". It said that hill country such as Paderu provided rich soil for the crop. The same report put the THC content of Idukki ganja at up to 8 per cent, against less than 5 per cent for ganja from Odisha, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.[6]
Appellations
No appellation pages exist for this growing area yet.
Accessions
| Accession ID | Name | Locality | Elevation | Collected |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| COC-IND-AND-0120200001 | Araku Valley General Population 2020 | Araku Valley | 951 m |
Recent news
| Article | Date | Category | Locality |
|---|---|---|---|
| News:2016-07-27/Report/psychedelic-idukki-gold-made-in-andhra-and-orissa | Report |
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 "Ganja cultivation goes unabated in Araku agency". The Hans India. 24 February 2019. Retrieved 19 October 2026.
- ↑ District Administration, Alluri Sitharama Raju. "History". Alluri Sitharama Raju District, Government of Andhra Pradesh. Retrieved 19 October 2026.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Oommen, Paul (7 December 2021). "Ground report: Why Andhra cops are destroying the ganja crops they ignored for years". The News Minute. Retrieved 19 October 2026.
- ↑ Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894). "Evidence of Rai Bahadur K. Narainaswamy, Telaga, Inspector of Police, Vizianagram". Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893–94. Vol. VI: Evidence of Witnesses from Central Provinces and Madras. Calcutta: Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing, India. Madras witness no. 69, pp. 261–262 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894). "Memorandum on hemp drugs in Madras, by Mr. W. O. Horne, Acting Secretary, Board of Revenue, Madras". Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893–94. Vol. III: Appendices, Miscellaneous. Simla: Government Central Printing Office. paras. 8–10, p. 83 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 "Psychedelic 'Idukki Gold', made in Andhra & Orissa". Onmanorama. 27 July 2016. Retrieved 19 October 2026.
- ↑ ETV Bharat (7 July 2025). "Erasing The Stain: Ganja Cultivation Wiped Out From Alluri District". ETV Bharat. Retrieved 19 October 2026.
- ↑ Ram Babu, Nalla (1 January 2026). "Visakhapatnam range police efforts to eradicate ganja and narcotic drugs in 2025". The Times of India. Retrieved 19 October 2026.