BARIPADA: Raghunth Hembram, a tribal farmer of Badhantabeda village in the remote Kusumi block that borders Jharkhand, is on cloud nine.
He has a reason to be happy because he just built a pucca house. In the last two weeks, he supplied 4 metric tonne (MT) Amrapalli mangoes and earned over Rs 1 lakh that helped him with his new dwelling.
Bahadur Soren, who lives in Tadki village of Morada block, has more than 100 mango trees and has earned above a lakh in the same period by supplying 2 MT of three varieties.
In the tribal-dominated Mayurbhanj, the king of fruits is not just spreading happiness of the pulpy sweetness, it is also building lives of hundreds of tribal farmers, thanks to the Mayurbhanj Fruits and Vegetables Farmers Producer Company (MFVFPC) led by ORMAS.
From the initial 500, the Farmers Producer Company (FPC) now has grown to accommodate 1,000 members as the tribals are gung-ho about growing mangoes which are in huge demand during the summer season. Recently, they had a moment of ecstasy as two mango-selling outlets titled ‘Gaon Amba Pasara’ were opened at Bangiriposi and Baripada for local sale. But look closely, the mango varieties from Mayurbhanj have traveled far and wide.
Besides the two outlets, the FPC has supplied more than 150 MT mangoes to Bokaro (Jharkhand), Banaras (Uttar Pradesh) and Bihar in the last 15 days and earned over Rs 30 lakh, says Deputy CEO of ORMAS, Biman Mal. Varieties like Dasheri, Amrapalli, Sundari, Gopal Bhog, Lengda and Bombay Green have been supplied to many states.
MFVFPC had earned over Rs 16 lakh in a season when 500 tribal farmers had initially joined and supplied 83 MT mangoes to Mother Dairy in Delhi and Bokaro Fruits and Vegetable Cooperative Society in Jharkhand. It picked up pace in the subsequent years when membership increased. In 2016-17, over 650 farmers earned a profit of Rs 8.7 lakh from the mango business.
Currently, there are 1,000 tribal farmers from Bangiriposi, Suliapada, Morada, Kuliana, Udala, Jashipur, Kusumi, Rairangpur and Betnoti blocks who are growing and selling mangoes under the aegis of the MFVFPC. Sundari variety is sold at Rs 80, Dasheri at Rs 50, Lengda at Rs 50, Amrapalli at Rs 50, Gopal Bhog at Rs 50 and Bombay Green at Rs 40.
“After the formation of MFVFPC, mango growers are not being exploited by middlemen. They are getting their due share. The mangoes are also in high demand as they are organic,” Mal points out.
Formed to eliminate private traders and middlemen from exploiting tribal farmers in 2015, MFVFPC was formed when Rajesh Prabhakar Patil was the Collector.