The Horticulture Department has set an ambitious target of exporting 5,000 metric tonnes (MT) of mangoes to various destinations across the world this year.
During the 2017-18 financial year, 248.01 MTs of fresh fruit was exported from Andhra Pradesh by different agencies. During 2018, ‘Panukulamanu’, the slightly less-sweet mango variety, was exported to Germany where it was received well.
Also, ‘Suvarnarekha’ mangoes were exported to South Korea for two years.
In 2018, 2.5 MT of Suvarnarekha was exported to Germany. During the same year, 1,471 MT of Benishan and Alphonso were exported to various countries.
Also, 82,500 MT of mango pulp of Bangolora and Alphonso varieties were exported to pulp industries in Algeria, Netherlands, Austria and West Asia.
The department set a target of 3,000 MT last year. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted exports, sources said.
When contacted, Horticulture Commissioner S.S. Sreedhar said that fresh mangoes and mango pulp are being exported from Krishna, Chittoor, Vizianagaram and West Godavari districts to Middle East countries, Netherlands, UK, USA and Japan.
The department has already organised a buyer and seller meet recently as part of the initiatives to promote exports from the State.
The aim of the meet is to provide a common platform for interaction between buyers and sellers of Mango to promote marketing to domestic as well as international destinations from Andhra Pradesh, thereby facilitating higher results to the farmers, he says.
Citing the previous years’ experience, Horticulture Joint Director (Fruits) M. Venkateswarlu said that the efforts to promote fruits from Andhra Pradesh were yielding good results. “The Vapour Heat Treatment (VHT) plant at Tirupati is the only VHT in the country which meets export quality requirements,”.he said.
