Lac culture works in India where host trees already grow, mainly in Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and West Bengal, and it needs host trees or host shrubs and a source of fresh brood lac rather than cropland. It is a low-input crop, but it is risky: yields have fallen sharply in recent seasons in parts of Jharkhand, and prices swing widely.
The lac insect (Kerria lacca) feeds on tender shoots and secretes resin, which is scraped off and sold as sticklac. India produces more than 20,000 tonnes a year, and Jharkhand alone accounts for over half of it.
Where it grows in India
- Share of production: Jharkhand 54.6%, Chhattisgarh 18.4%, Madhya Pradesh 13.8% and West Bengal 5.6% (ICAR review, 2022). Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh also produce lac. Gujarat has demonstration plots on ber and Prosopis.
- Climate: hot, sub-humid areas with the right host trees. Heavy rain, dense fog and cold spells at the settling stage damage the crop; farmers in Khunti, Jharkhand reported about 50% crop loss in the 2024-25 winter from dense fog and mist, and rain damage to kusmi lac in July 2025.
- Land: marginal and degraded land is enough, because lac needs little fertiliser, water or pesticide. Lac areas use only 20 to 25% of the host trees available, according to the ICFRE best-practice note.
Strains and host plants
| Crop | Strain and main hosts | Inoculated | Harvested | Duration |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Baisakhi (summer) | Rangeeni on palas, ber, pipal | October to November | June to July | about 8 months |
| Katki (rainy) | Rangeeni on palas | June to July | October to November | about 4 months |
| Jethwi (summer) | Kusmi on kusum, ber, semialata | January to February | June to July | about 6 months |
| Aghani (winter) | Kusmi on kusum, ber, khair | June to July | January to February | about 6 months |
- Kusum (Schleichera oleosa), palas (Butea monosperma), ber and Ficus species give about 90% of India's lac. Kusmi lac is lighter in colour and fetches a higher price than rangeeni.
- Semialata (Flemingia semialata): a small bushy host for kusmi lac, useful for farmers with no host trees. ICAR-IINRG advises using an early-maturing kusmi insect strain, letting insects settle on no more than 35% of the shoot space, planting in paired rows and irrigating every fortnight after the monsoon. With these steps it reports 44% more broodlac per metre.
- Ber: the most preferred host because it takes both strains and responds well to pruning. For kusmi lac, prune in March to April, inoculate 4 to 6 month old shoots in July to August at 20 g broodlac per pruned point, and harvest the next March to April. Among fruit ber varieties, Kaithali, Jogia, Seb x Gola and Banarasi Karaka were found good lac hosts.
- Arhar (pigeon pea): the late variety Bahar can carry rangeeni lac. At 26,400 plants per hectare, ICAR-IINRG reports about 1,750 kg scraped lac and 900 kg pulse per hectare, with a 32% cut in grain yield.
Operations through the year
- Pruning: prune hosts so that tender shoots are ready for inoculation. In an ICAR study, January and February pruning gave a broodlac yield ratio of about 6.2 against 4.8 for December pruning.
- Broodlac: buy fresh broodlac sticks from a trusted source; it cannot be stored for more than about a week. Tie sticks in the tree at about 20 to 25 g per metre of shoot. Do not overload the tree.
- Remove used sticks (phunki) after the insects emerge. This keeps predators and parasites away from the new crop.
- Pests: caterpillar predators and parasitic wasps are the main enemies. ICAR-IINRG has developed an insect filter that sorts predators from useful parasitoids in used broodlac. For any spray, follow the label and ask the local KVK or ICAR-IINRG, Ranchi.
- Resting: do not run the same host on the same crop every season. On ber, continuous winter kusmi crops with an early strain weakened the trees, which is why a late-maturing strain is advised.
- Harvest: scrape the lac from the twigs at maturity. Some of the crop is kept as broodlac for the next season.
Yield and why it is uncertain
- ICAR-IINRG's high-density ber system (7,445 plants per hectare in triple hedges) gave 35 kg lac from 12 kg broodlac on two-year-old plants for the winter kusmi crop. Normal 4 x 4 m ber planting has about 625 plants per hectare.
- A Gujarat demonstration (Tajpur, Banaskantha) inoculated 1,000 ber trees with 2,000 kg broodlac in July 2008 and harvested 220 quintals of broodlac, of which 70 quintals went to sticklac worth ₹4.9 lakh at the time.
- In Khunti, Jharkhand, one grower reported putting 5 kg of broodlac on a tree and getting less than 1 kg, where the same input once gave about 50 kg. Traders there put supplies down 20 to 30%. Treat any quoted yield as a good-year figure.
Cost and returns
- ICAR figures (older, per hectare): fruit-ber lac hosts, input ₹1,78,926 and output from broodlac and phunki ₹4,85,740 (about ₹72,000 cost and ₹1.97 lakh output per acre). High-density ber after year 3: income ₹4,20,586 against cost ₹1,71,285, net ₹2,49,301 a year (about ₹1.0 lakh net per acre).
- Small grower: the ICFRE note puts the net return from about 15 host trees at about ₹15,000 a year.
- Prices: Chhattisgarh's forest produce federation quoted purchase rates of ₹550 per kg for kusmi and ₹275 per kg for rangeeni in 2022, with open-market kusmi rising from ₹300 to ₹900 per kg as national output fell. A 2025 news report quotes about ₹1,000 per kg in Khunti weekly markets. Check the current rate with a nearby lac trader or MFP centre before planning.
- Arithmetic example: 100 kg of sticklac at ₹400 per kg is ₹40,000; at ₹900 per kg it is ₹90,000. Subtract broodlac purchase, pruning labour, scraping and transport. A failed crop returns almost nothing but the cost of the broodlac.
💡 Tip: Start with a few trees or one bush plot and one crop. Buy broodlac only from a source that can show the harvest date, and visit the nearest ICAR-IINRG (Ranchi) extension unit or KVK for training.
Market and risks
- Sticklac is sold to local traders and MFP centres, then processed into seedlac and shellac. Shellac goes to coatings for fruit, tablets and confectionery, wood polish, varnish and electrical insulation. Most growers sell raw sticklac, so value addition is the processors' margin.
- The ICFRE note names the main limits: broodlac cannot be stored, multiplication is low, host trees are under-used and prices are volatile.
- Lac on forest trees is governed by local forest rules; ask the forest department or gram sabha about rights before inoculating forest trees.
- Group selling through an FPO improves the price. See the subsidy finder for support and Kisan Credit Card for credit. Chhattisgarh has run interest-free crop loans for lac growers through its forest produce federation.
Sources
- K K Sharma, Advances in lac insect culture research (Indian Journal of Entomology, 2022, ICAR-IINRG)
- ICFRE and MoEFCC, Lac cultivation best practice flyer
- Down To Earth, Sticky decline (lac in Khunti, Jharkhand)
- ICAR, Promotion of lac cultivation in tribal areas of Gujarat
- Drishti IAS, Chhattisgarh lac initiative (2022 rates)