VIJAYAWADA: Mango lovers have to shell out more this summer as there has been a 40 per cent drop in mango production in the State. According to farmers in Nuzvid and other surrounding villages, prices shot up drastically due to unfavourable weather conditions, resulting in low yield. One other factor was damages to orchards by insects and pests.
Kobbari Mamidi is harvested in April, followed by other varieties like Suvarnarekha, Cheruku Rasalu, Kothapalli Kobbari, Panduri Mamidi and others. Of the all, Banginapalli, Suvarnarekha and Rasalu are usually in demand. Pariya and collector mangoes (in its raw form) are used in the preparation of traditional ‘avakai’ pickles.
The prices of the Banginapalli variety ranges between Rs 60,000 to 70,000 per tonne in the market. While, the Collector variety is Rs 35,000 per tonne, Pedda Rasalu is around Rs 45,000 per tonne and Chinna Rasalu is Rs 30,000 per tonne.
Reddy Swami, a farmer who harvested five varieties of mangoes in 20 acres of land in Vadalmanu in the district told TNIE that this year the flowering of mangoes was delayed and when the flowering started, the change in weather conditions and diseases damaged his yield.
"High rates will continue for sometime. However, we expect some relief by the month-end. Once the stock of mangoes hits the market, rates will automatically come down," Swami said.
Another farmer, B Rama Babu from Edera Village said this year he harvested around two tonnes of collector variety and one tonne of Banginapalli in his four acres of land. Particularly, in this season, several farmers in Nuzvid and other surrounding villages prefer to harvest Banginapalli considering the export demands. At present, only 60 per cent crop has flowered and the remaining yield is likely to be harvested after the Ugadi, he said. Babu also said sudden downpour will benefit the crop.
Meanwhile, several buyers who participated in the Mango Buyers-Sellers Meet-2020 at Nuzvid on Saturday have maintained that a majority of the farmers are harvesting the fruit in early stage, which will result in decline of exports.
"Every season, we procure around 2,500 metric tonne of Totapuri variety from Chittoor. In 2016, the mango fruit was harvested in 70,000 hectares in Chittoor, which has increased to 1.2 lakh hectares now. This season, we have decided to procure at least 10,000-12,000 metric tonne of Alphonso/Totapuri variety for export," said Sameer Sarma, a buyer from Chittoor. The government should focus on developing protocol for mango export as there is huge global demand for mangoes from Andhra Pradesh.
"This season, we have fixed a target to export 3,000 metric tonne of Chinna Rasalu from Nuzvid, which is the most preferable fruit variety by the exporters," said Horticulture Commissioner Chiranjeevi Choudhary.
Elaborating further, he said in recent years the fruit variety is affected with a disease and farmers are facing losses. In this regard, the department has laid focus on improving mango harvesting and distributed around one crore covers for the farmers across the State, of which 25 lakh covers will be distributed in Nuzvid region alone.
At present the demand for Chinna Rasalu is high among the exporters so farmers should cash in the demand and harvest the fruit variety using the covers supplied by the department, the horticulture commissioner said.