Ray of hope for mango farmers

Adilabad: Finally, there is a ray of hope for mango farmers in Adilabad district, who hitherto had been facing immense problems due to lack of marketing facility in the district, as their long-standing demand for a mango market in Bellampally will soon be a reality.

Although the district is famous for mango orchards, the farmers never got their due owing to lack of market facility. The difficulty in accessing markets had been forcing the farmers to sell their produce to lower prices.

The mango gardens are spread over 24,928 hectares in the district, especially in the eastern part of the region. Tandur, Bhimini, Vemanapally, Nennel, Kasipet and Bellampally mandals are famous for mango orchards. At an average of 7 metric tonne (MT) yield per hectare, the district produces around 1.74 lakh MT per annum, this if weather gods permit.

According to a conservative estimate, the mango business in the district is around Rs 170 crore per annum. Even if the farmers escape the unseasonal rains and gales that wreak havoc almost every year, invariably they fall prey to middlemen, who transport them to Maharashtra.

Exploiting the small and marginal farmers’ inability to take their produce to far flung places such as Nagpur for marketing, the middlemen are continuing their sway over the farmers. Fearing transportation expenses and in the absence of minimum support price, most of the farmers give away their orchards to middlemen as early as in January and February. Although the previous government proposed to set up cold storage godowns in Mancherial and Bellampally for mangoes, they remained on paper only.

“The authorities have identified 10 acres (Sy No 170) adjacent to Agriculture Market Yard in Bellampally to set up mango yard,” the Assistant Director of Marketing T Srinivas told The Hans India, referring to the Minister for Major Irrigation T Harish Rao nod for release of Rs 2.50 crore for the construction of mango market yard.

Once the market yard works gets underway, the authorities will identify the purchasers and issue them the licenses, he said. Referring to the proposed marketing facility at Bellampally, the Assistant Director of Horticulture C Jaganmohan Reddy said that it would augur well for the farmers who hitherto had problems to dispose their produce.

“We were not getting remunerative price even if we avoid the local middlemen and go to Nagpur or other places to sell our produce as the trading syndicates there corner us quoting lower prices,” Mothe Venkati of Avadam village under Nennel mandal, who owns a 25-acre orchard, said.

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