In this article you are going to read about how and why the state of karnataka farmers were compelled to dump the mangoes on road side. Was it due to pricing or supply chain failure or disease & pest attack or something else ?let’s look deep inside… Srinivaspur a city of Kolar district in state of Karnataka is the biggest producer of Mangoes in the state. Srinivaspur also known as mango city of India. Over 63 species of mangoes are grown here. Among them Benganpalli, Benishan, Totapuri, Raspuri, Alphonso, Neelam, Malgova, Mallika are some of the famous varieties found there. According to some sources Totapuri variety is being grown over 60,000 hectares of area in Srinivaspur. Farmers of KOLAR district in KARNATAKA were found dumping tonnes of mangoes on the road side near SRINIVASPUR. Mainly Benganpalli, Benishan and Totapuri varities were being dumped.Reasons of doing so ? 1. PricingIt was the primary reason behind this incident. According to Kolar district mango grower association president Neelaturu Chinnappa Reddy, each tone of Benishan mango was sold as Rs. 1 lakh in 2019. Which was reduce to Rs. 50,000 to 80,000 last year.
How ever this year in 2021 the price reduced to Rs. 10,000 to 15,000 per tone.There were no buyers from the state of Tamilnadu and Andhrapradesh as well.2. Fungal Disease AttackThis was the major reason said for the dropping of the price. Fungal diseases like Powdery mild dew, Anthracnose, Die back, Mango Malformation etc attacked to the mangoes and reduce its quality. 3. Lack of Value chain and supply chain managementThey do not have any cold storage to store or factories in their district to remove the pulp of mangoes for further processing.The transportation cost is also not feasible for them as already the price is too high.4. Climate The mango growers faced a triple whammy this year as unexpected rains and hailstorm lashed the district which caused severe damage to the crops.
KV Nagaraju, Chairman of Karnataka State Mango Development and Marketing Corporation Limited said that the Totapuri variety of the crops suffered huge losses while other crops suffered minimum losses.He added that he has written to the government to give a compensation of Rs 50,000 per hectare to the Totapuri growers of Kolar who incurred losses.
What might saved the farmers ? 1. Contract farming 2. Proper guidance regarding diseases and pests management of mangoes 3. government schemes and subsidies on mango farming.
Satyajit Sahu,Ph.no – 8018001528
