Mango growers in Prakasam district are a worried lot as the country-wide lockdown to prevent the spread of novel coronavirus coincided with marketing of the king of fruits.
The output this year has been quite encouraging as they had a good precipitation, ending five years of consecutive drought. Flowering also occurred at the right time in December/January promising an yield of about five tonnes per acre.
But the outbreak of the dreaded disease has put paid to their hopes of reaping the benefits. Upcountry buyers, who used to make a beeline for the orchards in and around the ‘mango village’ of Ulavapadu in the district, have not turned up yet to confirm orders, a group of farmers from the village said in a conversation with The Hindu.
The market price of the Ulavapadu variety ruled at ₹40,000 per tonne. While the best quality mangoes are first moved to cities such as Chennai, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Bengaluru and from there to the U.S.A., European and West Asian countries. Traders from the north used to first visit Nuzvid in the Krishna district and then to Ulavapadu, where mangoes are grown in over 18,000 acres.
Keeping their fingers crossed, they said, “We are hoping against hope that the lockdown is not extended beyond three weeks as the matured crop has to be harvested and moved to markets swiftly.”
“There are no takers for the pulpy fruit ever since the lockdown was declared,” lamented a trader K. Sudhakar who has put a stall by the side of the Chennai-Kolkata highway in Ulavapadu.
“If the lockout is extended beyond three weeks they will have no option but to allow the most-sought-after mango variety to rot,” feared a farmer P. Nagaraju from Ravuru village.
They wanted the government to arrange for cold storage facility and help us in marketing the produce before they perish, added another farmer Mathaiah from Gudluru village.
Progressive farmers have adopted zero-based natural farming techniques to meet the increasing demand for organically-grown fruit which gets a premium price of more than ₹50,000 per tonne.
