The Hindu Business Line : Coded handshake for selling mangoes may end soon

However, the 6.7-lakh tonne a year mango business, despite all these traditional price-finding methods, has been failing the primary producer year-after-year. The mango farmers of Maharashtra, mostly located in the stretch of Ratnagiri, Sindhudurg, Raigad and Thane , have been sitting ducks to the middlemen and big traders, who have final say on procurement price of mangoes.

While a good variety as Alphonso fetches Rs 300 a dozen, farmers get not more than Rs 125, with the middleman-trader nexus pocketing the rest. The same variety, during lean period, costs about Rs 200 in Mumbai markets but farmers only manage to net Rs 75.

Now, the Maharashtra Government has decided to step in and stem the rot. The State Minister of Marketing, Mr Harshwardhan Patil, has announced in the Assembly that henceforth, public auctions would be held for mangoes in the local APMC (Agriculture Produce Market Committee) market yard.

"The move would give farmers the right price and remove the middlemen. If need be, the Government will bring an ordinance preventing secret price negotiations. As a pilot project, open mango auctions would be held in Mumbai APMC market soon," Mr Patil said.

India's share of global mango business is 56 per cent, with Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Maharashtra constituting 65 per cent of the total area under the crop. The Alphonso variety is mainly cultivated in Ratnagiri district. Mr Vivek Bhide, major mango pulp exporter from Ratnagiri, told Business Line that the decision would definitely help the farmers but was a double-edged one. "Middlemen are deeply entrenched in APMC markets with forward linkages with large buyers. They also pay money in advance to farmers for getting pesticides and labour cost. Change in the system would also have to take into consideration all these factors," Mr Bhide said.

Clearly, the Government will try and "oust the middlemen". On the other hand, the middlemen will try their best to get entrenched yet again in the new system.

At the end of the day, the success of the new policy will be measured by how much more the farmer got for his mangoes.

Come May and the Ratnagiri farmer will know whether the new pricing mechanism works any better.

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