Stakeholders join hands to create sustained orange export from region

Nagpur: Multiple factors like uncertainties in weather, quantity and quality of produce, price in domestic market, non-availability of exporters and the waiting time in ship consignments have been holding back sustained export of orange from the region.
There had been certain sporadic exports over the last two decades. But now orange growers, government bodies like Agriculture and Processed Food Production Export Development Authority (APEDA), Maharashtra State Agriculture and Marketing Board (MSAMB) and Maha Orange have joined hands to make a fresh attempt to create a sustained market in the Middle East of Nagpur orange.

The first consignment of one-tonne orange from the farm of Dhiraj Junghare, the biggest orange grower in the region, is slated to move from Nagpur airport through Qatar Airways on Wednesday, which is to be followed by almost the same quantity every day for the next few days on trial basis.

Maha-Orange Director Shridhar Thakre said this was the first time that orange is being exported by air. “This is test export or trial consignment. It is also an effort to develop a taste for Nagpur orange in the Middle East. If we get good response, we will try to make this a regular feature,” he said.

Thakre said, “Though we had tried exporting orange through ship consignments to Sri Lanka in 2015, it could not be repeated due to low market price there. So far, only land transport and export to Bangladesh has been consistent as the price was good there. But now due to high import duty there, even that market is dwindling.”

Another Maha-Orange director Manoj Jawanjal from Katol said small consignments through air may fetch better market as well as price and could prove sustainable. “APEDA and MSMAB have played a key role in coordinating the current effort after the recent ‘Orange Festival’ in the city. They brought exporters in the front,” he said.

Prashant Waghmare, assistant general manager of APEDA, said the authority will also be using the ‘GI Tag’ for orange to our advantage in the next consignment. “We are trying to send through air first time so that there is a regular supply, but there is no glut in the market,” he said.

DM Sable, assistant general manager with MSMAB, said it was heartening that one of their trainees had turned out to be an exporter. EVA Exporters, run by Sandip Chavan, is sending the first lot of oranges in corrugated boxes made by Maha-Orange. “The first consignment of 400 boxes weighing one tonne will leave from the city on Wednesday. We are trying to pack fruits in one-and-a-half dozen boxes to capture the retail market,” said Sable.

Chavan told TOI that he was exporting vegetables for the past 7-8 years and added orange to bring Nagpur orange on the international map. Sonali Loharikar from Pune, who runs a company called SDF Productions Pvt Ltd, will also be sending a few consignments in this trial export marketing experiment.