Talala yard no more a juicy option

Rajkot: Known as the biggest market of Kesar mango, Talala has been losing the charm of auctioning the fruit over the recent years. Farmers who used to their produce to the market yard are now preferring direct sale to consumers. And they use social media to reach their customers.
Gir Kesar has received GI tag and the fruit is popular for its taste among mango lovers. Traders all over Gujarat wait for the auction of mangos to start at Talala market yard. But now the total number of boxes auctioned at Talala market yard has halved.
In 2016, the market yard had auctioned 10.66 lakh boxes of mango (each box of 10kg weight) in the entire season. Thereafter, the number continued to come down and in 2022, the number of auctioned boxes was 5.03 lakh. This year, the auction started last week. The market yard gets around 4,000 to 5,000 boxes daily for auction.
According to farmers, because of malpractice adopted by some traders, the customers prefer to buy directly from the farmers. And thanks to government’s intervention, mango is now directly sold to consumers by farmers in big cities like Ahmedabad.
Says Ramesh Siroya, secretary of Talala market yard: “Earlier, farmers used to come to the market yard with their produce but now they get free stalls in malls in big cities like Ahmedabad and Delhi by the government and farmers do direct retail marketing. Earlier, it was easy to give an estimated production by the mango income at the Talala market yard but now it is not possible.”
For direct sale to consumers, farmer-producer organisations (FPOs) play an important role. Gir Krishi Vasant Producers Limited is one FPO that has 200 mango growing farmers who have been promoting direct sale to consumers since 2016.
The FPO also organises mango fairs in Ahmedabad and Delhi. This year, they have decided to sell mangoes online in Ahmedabad, Surat, Vadodara, Bhuj, Gandhinagar, Jamnagar, Mehsana, Prantij and Himmatnagar.
Tushar Dhameliya, director of this FPO, said: “We are planning to start online sale in selected cities where we have a network of home delivery. The farmers get the benefit of good price in direct retail sale and the customers also get the assurance of good quality.”
FPO is an organised way where farmers reach the consumers directly. But there are many farmers in Junagadh, Gir Somnath and Amreli districts who are individually selling their crop directly to customers. They do marketing on social media and get orders on WhatsApp.
Anil Rangani, who has got a mango orchid at Jamvala in Gir Somnath district, says he has been been directly selling his crop to customers for the past nine years. “I put advertisements on the social media platforms and I get orders from various cities. I have appointed a dealer in a city and send him boxes through transport as per orders. We deliver at people’s doorsteps if we get orders for five or more boxes,” said Rangani, who sends over 100 boxes every day to various cities.