The Hindu Business Line : A good year seen for alphonso mango

COME summer and the most awaited fruit for the Punekars or Maharashtrians is the king of fruits, alphonso mango, which is seen in the Mandai by end of March.

Mangoes start trickling into the markets by mid-March and are usually picked up by customers who do not mind spending a packet on it as its cost ranges from Rs 400-500 a dozen.

The best of the produce would be in the market by mid-April and this year is expected to be a much better one than last year, said Dr R.M. Kharche, Managing Director, Maharashtra State Agricultural Marketing Board (MSAMB). This is despite the varied climatic vagaries that Pune has been going through, from extreme cold to high temperature and back to the cold, he told Business Line.

The expected arrival of mangoes in the domestic market is close to 2 lakh tonnes as compared to 1.6 lakh tonnes that had come into the market last year. He said of the two-lakh tonnes production, close to 30,000 tonnes would go to overseas markets as compared to 16,000 tonnes of alphonso that had been exported last year.

Dr Kharche said exports have always been a thrust area and alphonso mangoes have been tickling the taste buds of people staying in Singapore, London, Holland, Germany, West Asia and Malaysia.

This year's exports would also include the Chinese market. He said an exercise had been conducted in China last year where two varieties of mangoes, dasseria and langda, as also mango pulp and juice in tetrapak had been showcased as a sample test and had found favourable response.

Dr Kharche said MSAMB along with private exporters would be catering to this new market and is estimating close to 5,000 tonnes of mangoes to be exported this season (April and May). This would include two varieties, alphonso and kesar, and would be in the Chinese markets till June end when the Kesar season ends.

Chinese have their mango season during November.

Pune is to hold a mango festival for the first time, Dr Kharche said. This festival is scheduled to kick off in early May and would be similar to the mango festivals that have been doings its rounds in Mumbai.

He said MSMAB in collaboration with two women organisations and a couple of co-operative agencies would be bringing in the mangoes from various parts of Maharashtra, especially from the mango belt of Ratnagiri, Sindhudurg and Devgad. Here, he said consumers would be directly interacting with the farmers for the best produce of the State.

Locations have been shortlisted for setting up of the stalls which would number close to 75. The total expenditure for this exercise would be close to Rs 5 lakh, and may be jointly met by MSAMB and the partners, he added.

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