Over half-a-dozen major retail supply chains (marketers) have evinced interest in procuring mango from the small and marginal farmers mobilised as a pilot project by the Society for Elimination of Rural Poverty (SERP) earlier this mango season.
The SERP has selected 2,850 small and marginal women mango farmers from 94 villages in four major mango producing districts in the State — Nagarkurnool, Mahabubnagar, Jagtial and Mancherial — and has been training them in various stages of mango production starting from water of the plans in flowering stage in association with Horticulture Department, Sri Konda Laxman Telangana State Horticultural University and Telangana State Food Processing Society for the last 2-3 months.
Of the selected farmers, 2,459 were being given field-level training in fruit grading and packing and 806 were being training in fruit picking (plucking from trees) with skills to minimise damage to fruit such as cuts and bruises. The women farmers, who were already in the self-help groups, were formed into 175 mango producer associations with an aim to improve their income by producing quality fruit and organised marketing (selling).
Buyer interaction
The SERP in association with other departments organised a mango buyer-seller meet here on Tuesday, in which several women farmers of the pilot project, representatives of retail supply chains including Big Basket, Walmart, Village Basket, Allana and Sirath Agro and representatives of commerce and industry bodies such as FTAPCCI, FICCI, CII and others participated in the meet.
Representatives of the retail supply chains explained the farmer producer organisations about quality specifications and quantity of fruit required.
Explaining about the pilot project, Chief Executive Officer of SERP Pausumi Basu said they had set a target of selling 3,500 tonnes of quality mango this season. They had set up village and district level procurement centres to collect mango produced by the farmers under the pilot project.
Speaking at the meeting, Agriculture Production Commissioner C. Parthasarathi stated that mango was being cultivated in about 2.85 lakh acres with an estimated production capacity of over 10.2 lakh tonnes. About 90% of the mango cultivated in the State was that of well-known Banginapalli variety.
Good demand
Commissioner of Horticulture L. Venkatrami Reddy said the mango produced in the State was of high quality due to the suitable weather conditions here and there was high demand for the fruit produced in Jagtial and Kollapur areas. He suggested the farmers to focus on maturity of the fruit, which was a must for quality fruit and its shelf life.
Citing a survey conducted by Agricultural University he stated that only 10% of the mango produced in the State was being consumed here. To popularise the mangoes produced in the State, the Horticultural Development Corporation was selling the fruit in Delhi by setting up special stalls.