Ripe time for Mango Board Premium

Struggles of mango farmers in Chittoor, Andhra Pradesh, highlight the need for a Mango Board to stabilize prices and support growers.

In July 2023, mango farmers in the undivided Chittoor district of Andhra Pradesh had just wrapped up their harvest. The yield was dismally low, but the growers had faith in the demand-supply equation, certain that a crunch would push up the prices.

When the time came for them to sell their produce, the dozen or so pulp-making units in the region, one of the farmers’ main customers, proposed their procurement price: ₹6 a kg, said to be the lowest in the history of mango trade in Chittoor.

Bewildered, the farmers, some staring at certain financial ruin, sought government intervention. Consequently, the price was slightly raised to ₹9 a kg, still a far cry from the remuneration the farmers had counted on.

Pushed further, the pulp-makers threw up their hands, saying they could not afford to offer any higher prices, for they were sitting on huge stocks from the pandemic years.

Sixty-year-old K. Mani, a farmer from Mandipeta Kotur in Palamaner mandal who had to endure that tough year, says the farmers would not have had to take up such gambles had there been a Mango Board on the lines of the Tobacco Board. “Only such a board can stabilise the prices, save us from exploitation and cushion our losses,” he adds.

Mr. Mani is one of the 40,000-odd mango growers, large and small, in the undivided Chittoor district, one of the most important mango cultivation belts in India and especially famous for the ‘Thothapuri’ variety of mangoes.

On a trip at the end of winter through the highways and the rural roads meandering the region, one can feast their eyes on mango orchards swaying in full bloom.