CHENNAI: The summer is past, but the sweat of uneasiness is still dripping from the eyebrows of mango farmers in Tamil Nadu, as the season was different this time around.
While the 'king of fruits' entered households in abundance, as it generally does, the mango cultivators, who otherwise remain off the media glare, also entered the drawing rooms, virtually. They caught the attention of the media and thereby those in power, at least briefly, during the peak season in June.
For about two weeks, the media, with its appetite for drama, covered episodes of farmers dumping mangoes in large quantities on the roads in protest and out of desperation, as the pulp-making units, whom they primarily rely on for selling their produce, either did not buy the fruit citing poor demand from up the value chain or offered an abysmal price of Rs 1 to Rs 5 per kg.
While talking to TNIE in June, NT Bharat from Paradarami in Vellore pointing to a couple of thousand tonnes of mangoes harvested in the region with no buyer coming forward, said, "Officials said they will find a proper solution. We asked when? They do not understand the urgency. Our fruits are already rotting. If a person has a heart attack, we treat them immediately, right?".
K Murugan from Marandahalli in Dharmapuri district said dumping the produce on roadside was a better way to prevent further losses. "We would otherwise have to spend Rs 1 per kg for cleaning and transport, besides labour charges for collecting the fruits, at a time when the companies are not even offering us Rs 5 per kg," he said.
R. Venkatesan of Katpadi in Vellore, meanwhile, had a tractor full of mangoes waiting outside a pulp factory in Chittoor in Andhra Pradesh for a few days, expecting that they would be procured. "The fruits are rotting as we speak. It's heartbreaking," he told TNIE in the third week of June.
As voices from TN's mango-growing districts intensified and pressure mounted from the opposition parties, the state government met owners of pulp-making companies on June 16, "urging" them to procure the mangoes, but to no avail.
A week later, Chief Minister MK Stalin wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Agriculture Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan seeking the implementation of the Market Intervention Scheme for mangoes in the state to compensate the farmers through Price Deficiency Payment (PDP), with the Union and state sharing the cost equally.
This was done in Andhra Pradesh to address a similar problem this year, where the farmers were paid Rs 4 per kilogramme over and above the price offered by the pulp units. Food Minister R Sakkarapani met Chouhan in Delhi on June 25 and handed over Stalin's letter, urging action.
No help came
As a couple more weeks rolled by, the season came to an end, the mangoes gradually vanished from the kitchens, and the farmers disappeared from the media and the collective consciousness of the public, resigning to the losses and debts they have to deal with.
Mangoes are in season only three months a year. However, the systemic problems faced by the farmers – an over-reliance on a handful of privately-owned pulp-making units, the control wielded by middlemen, low productivity, inadequate assistance in tackling diseases, lack of exposure to exports of fresh mangoes, non-diversification of mango varieties, no guidance on value addition – remain perennial, waiting to rear their ugly heads when there is a tipping point, as it happened this year.
What went wrong?
The common reason cited by officials was that the production this year was bountiful, resulting in reduced demand. There is truth in this, but it only offers a partial explanation, particularly with no reliable data available to substantiate the extent of overproduction this year.
The key reason was that the pulp-making units in the state, concentrated mainly in Krishnagiri district, did not want to buy mangoes, since the pulp they had stocked up over the past two years had not been cleared due to drop in demand in the export market. The pulp, heated to 106 degrees Celsius, then cooled, and stored in aluminum bags inside steel barrels, has a shelf life of two years.
Meet P Kanagaraj, managing director and a partner of Sri Samundeeswari Food Products Pvt Limited in Tirupattur, who started the company in 2007 and saw profits ever since, except for the last two years. Pointing out that the company exported 80% of the pulp while selling the remaining 20% to Fast-Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) companies in India, he said the Ukraine-Russia war and the conflicts in West Asia disrupted the export market.
He said pulp-making companies offered around Rs 15 per kilogramme in 2023 and it went up to about Rs 25 in 2024, but the pulp made in both the years did not move. He said close to 1,000 tonnes of stock that had not moved, costing him a loss of Rs 10 crore.
Official data show that while Tamil Nadu exported Rs 657.1 crore worth of mango pulp in 2022-23, this sharply fell to just Rs 175.7 crore in 2023-24 before marginally improving to Rs 208.6 crore in 2024-25.
E Madhavan, general secretary, Krishnagiri Mango Pulp Processors Federation, said many European countries have of late been procuring from South American countries.
V Anbazhagan of Kaveri Agro Industries in Krishnagiri said though he was reliant on 50% of pulp to be sold domestically to FMCG companies, the 12% GST on pulp and the GST imposed on the beverages manufactured by these companies have made them reduce the pulp content in violation of minimum levels fixed by FSSAI. This led to reduced local demand, he said.
Although Maharashtra and Gujarat are catching up, going by the export data, Krishnagiri region remains the major pulp-making cluster in the country. In 2014-15, TN accounted for 75% of the 1.55 lakh tonnes of pulp exported from India.
The dominance of these companies and the predictable sales they offered every year made the farmers dependent on the companies through middlemen. Besides sales for local consumption, the mango farmers in TN have over the years become almost fully reliant on the pulp-making units, which explains why Totapuri (Bangalora) is the most widely grown variety because of its high pulp content.
In effect, roughly about 25 private pulp-making units that control the trade in the state, decided not to procure from farmers, citing that they could not incur any further loss, leaving farmers in the lurch.
The companies have come under criticism in the past for alleged cartelisation to undercut farmers. Congress leader Dr A Chellakumar, who served as Krishnagiri MP from 2019-2024, while speaking in the Lok Sabha in 2023 urging the government to introduce minimum support price for mangoes, said, “Industries make a cartel and squeeze the farmers by fixing throwaway prices during the seasons.”
Theni district secretary of Tamil Nadu Farmers Association T Kannan also accused the pulp factories in Dharmapuri, Krishnagiri and Natham of forming a syndicate to the detriment of the farmers.
No cooperative unit
An alternative would be to establish cooperative pulping units with the support of the government. Industry sources said around 10 acres of land would be required to set up a pulping factory with one machine that can process about 140 tonnes of mangoes a day. Apart from the land, the initial investment needed would be Rs 30 crore.
Interestingly, sugarcane is cultivated in roughly the same area as that of mango in TN. Sugarcane, being an extremely water-intensive crop which is also offered an MSP, 100% of the 1.52 lakh hectares (2023-24) on which it is cultivated are irrigated land. In contrast, with less dependence on water, only 40% of the 1.45 lakh hectares under mango cultivation are irrigated in TN.
There are 16 cooperative sugar mills functioning in TN, but not a single pulp-making unit. Venkatesan said there was a pulp-making cooperative unit functioning earlier in Vellore, but it was shut down.
While many private pulp-making units told TNIE the market was already saturated and there was no need for new units, the farmers said they would enthusiastically participate in setting up one if the government is willing to support.
The concentration of pulp and other mango processing units largely around Krishnagiri also affects the farmers in terms of transportation costs. B Raja, a farmer from Dindigul, who cultivates mango in over 10 acres said there is just one mango processing unit in Dindigul and hence most planters have to send their produce to far-off places.
No diversification
Maharashtra, despite producing only half the quantity of mangoes than TN, accounts for around 75% of the quantity of fresh mangoes exported from India. TN accounts for just 0.5%.
T Mani, a third-generation mango farmer from Tiruvallur, who grows Banganapalli, Rumani and Javari varieties, is fully dependent on the local market. Stating that Banganapalli was being exported from Tiruvallur earlier, he added that it has reduced now.
“It is a risky market as there is quality control. There are chances that once the mangoes are exported, they would be returned due to some quality issues,” he said, indicating the lack of support available from the government and agencies like the Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA), unlike their counterparts in Maharashtra who export huge volumes of Alphonso.
“I know only about pulp factories. I am not aware on exporters or export procedures,” said Venkatesan.
M Shankaran, principal scientist and head, Division of Fruit Crops, Indian Institute of Horticulture Research, Bengaluru, said most orchards are leased to contractors, who do not follow good agricultural practices, resulting in the inability to meet international standards. Both Madhavan and Kanagaraj said they have found the use of Cultar, a plant growth regulator, to have become common, which affected quality.
Shankaran said, “Besides, importing countries want certain pre-packaging treatments. The US wants irradiated mangoes, which kills fruit flies that may be there; Japan, Europe want hot water-treated mangoes.”
Of the 21 gamma irradiation facilities functioning across the country, five are in Maharashtra, four in Gujarat, while there is only one in TN in Krishnagiri run by Department of Agricultural Marketing and Agri Business (DAMAB).
Despite taking pride in its ‘Salem Mango,’ which in fact refers to a few different varieties, TN is yet to get a GI tag for a mango variety, which could improve its export potential. An application filed in this regard in 2013 is still pending.
Value addition
While Farmer Producer Organisations (FPOs), supported by the government, have faced reasonable success for some crops in TN, it does not seem to have happened with mangoes. DAMAB, on its website, lists over 350 FPOs. Officials said there are only two that focus mainly on mango.
A Srinivasan, director of Maanga FPO, which has been functioning in Bargur since 2022, said last year they procured 100 tonnes from farmers and the turnover was to the tune of Rs 50 lakh. However, this year the procurement was poor, he said.
Due to lack of well-functioning FPOs, mango farmers directly getting involved in producing value-added products have not met with success in TN. Tamil Nadu Agricultural University lists a variety of value-added products, including pickles, candies, fruit bars, squash, nectar, osmotic dehydrated dried mangoes, mango flakes, jam and many more.
K Venkatesan, dean in-charge (Horticulture), Horticultural College and Research Institute in Coimbatore, however, said as an academic organisation they disseminated information to farmers through regular engagements.
On the low productivity in TN, he said senile old orchards could be the reason and rejuvenation is in progress in many places.
In need of support
The state government announced the setting up of a centre of excellence for mangoes in Vedharampattu in Dharmapuri district two years ago. AG Fathima, deputy director of Horticulture, said it was inaugurated five months ago. She said work is under way to set up the plantation to highlight it as a model farm. “We would provide hands-on training to improve cultivation and crop management at the centre,” she said.
In 2024, the government announced a ‘Special Scheme for Mukkani Development’, which included mango. A senior official said expansion of mango cultivation in 19,875 hectares, assistance for rejuvenation of around 10,000 hectares, and training programmes have been organised as part of the scheme.
The official also said a proposal is being considered to set up small-scale pulping units by providing a 35% subsidy in a bid to make farmers self-reliant.
D. Devaraj, a mango farmer from Vellore explained how he takes care of every mango tree, just like one cares a baby. "We use the fruits only from the third year; that is best for the tree. In the third year, it gives 50 kilogrammes of fruit, and after 20 years, it gives up to 500 kilogrammes."
With less dependence on water and a long life span of several decades, a mango tree can feed three generations, he said, pointing out he could earn a profit of close to Rs 2 lakh during the season from the five acres of his orchard. He said all the farmers expected was a little support from the government.
Tamil Nadu, which is hitting double-digit growth in GSDP in its ambitious target towards becoming a $1 trillion economy by 2030 could do well to unleash the potential in mango farming.
(Reporting by Dheepthi OJ in Vellore, Pon Vasanth BA in Chennai, T Muruganandham in Chennai, Subashini Vijayakumar in Chennai, Sivaguru S in Krishnagiri, Rajalakshmi Sampath in Vellore, Jevin Selwyn Henry in Dharmapuri), N Dhamotharan in Coimbatore, Jeyalakshmi Ramanujam in Theni and Saravanan MP in Dindigul)