With bumper mango crop, Malda eyes European Union countries

Earlier this month, when Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee was touring north Bengal, she had said during a speech at a public rally in Malda that the government is looking to export Malda’s mangoes to the EU.

Nandini Chakraborty, Director of the Food Processing Department in Malda and in-charge of the export project, said a trial batch of mangoes has been sent and approved by Italy and Switzerland already.

“Malda has produced a bumper harvest of 3.75 lakh metric tonnes of mangoes — one-and-a-half times the normal yield. Till last year, most of our exports were to Bangladesh — As much as 60 percent of the total yield. But recently, Bangladesh has increased import duty to Rs 29 a kilogram, making it a not-so-desirable market. So, we have of course started looking at other markets,” said Nandini.

Chakraborty said the formalities and protocol to export to the EU are stiff.

“First of all, the farmers involved need to be registered. This had not been done before. We are in the process of registering all the mango farmers here. We are also trying to shift the entire process online. We need NPPO certification for the mangoes before they can be exported. We have also started hot water treatment for mangoes, which by the next season will be converted to vapour treatment,” the director said.

Hot water treatment is a system by which mangoes are immersed in water at 75 degrees Celsius. This is done not only to check their quality, but to extend their shelf life.

“The mangoes are taken out of the hot water and then directly put in cooling chambers. We have set up these chambers. Only fruits with thick skins, like mangoes, can be treated this way. Fruits such as grapes, with softer skins, cannot. Our aim is to produce a high-quality table mango. Totapuri mangoes from Andhra Pradesh, for instance, are great for processing, but not great table mangoes,” said Nandini.

Himsagar is currently the most popular mango from Malda.

Chakraborty added that Malda, apart from exporting to Dubai, Saudia Arabia and Abu Dhabi, is also exploring the possibility of exporting to other neighbouring countries such as Nepal.

“The Middle East is easier to export to, as their protocols are more lenient. So even now, individual exporters do export smaller amounts of mangoes to these countries,” she said.