New Delhi, July 29: To further promote and build the market for Meghalaya’s pineapples, the state government is going to organise a Pineapple Festival in New Delhi next month.
The festival will be held post the celebrations of Independence Day and will provide an opportunity to Delhiites to enjoy the fine pineapples (aka fine-apples) of the State. Following on the successful export of Khasi mandarin last year, the Department of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, Government of Meghalaya and Meghalaya Basin Management Agency (MBMA) have recently facilitated market linkages of over 1.3 tonnes of Pineapples to the Middle East. This is part owf the continued efforts to reduce the gulf between the farmers of the state and lucrative international markets. The pineapples from Meghalaya are being sold across malls in Dubai, Kuwait and Sharjah. More importantly, the state’s farmers are enjoying the fruit of their labour with up to 2 times increase in price realisation from these trades, according to official sources. The efforts closer home has resulted in sustained market linkages with domestic processors and retailers. Last year, over 40 tonnes of pineapples were shipped to a Karnataka based processor to be further exported to European and North American markets. This year, the same processor has established a mobile processing unit at Umdihar IVCS, in Umdihar Village (Ri Bhoi District) for taking in larger quantities and over 23 tonnes of Pineapples have been processed by the unit in the first week of its operation. The processing units require pineapples weighing a kilogram and above and don’t accept fruits of smaller sizes.
During harvest season, entire fields are harvested for sale, but only the large pineapples (Grade A) get sold to the processing units. This leaves the farmers with a large quantity of smaller sized pineapples (Grade B aka table-variety). To mitigate distress sale of these table-variety pineapples, the department is actively exploring market linkages with local retailers and have recently established linkages with Reliance Retail stores across Guwahati for sale of table-variety pineapples from Meghalaya. As a result of this intervention, the farmers are now able to get over 2 times the price for the table-variety pineapples. The Meghalaya pineapples are famous for their high-sugar content (brix value of 16-18) and low sourness.
The pineapples in the State are mostly being cultivated without any use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, resulting in significantly lower heavy metal and pesticide residue in the fruit. These traits make them highly suitable for lucrative international and national markets. However, for long the trade has been dominated by middlemen and traders who often ‘book bagaans’ (farm fields) months before harvest season by paying the farmers a lump sum amount. The farmers, having poor access to market information and needing money before the festive season and onset of school semester, unwillingly ‘book’ their farms at a fraction of the cost of the fruits on their farm. Being cognizant of the challenges and issues being faced by the farmers of the State, the government has been actively working towards building community-centric, grassroots level solutions. These efforts are slowly coming to fruition now. The government has been working towards mobilising the farmers to form farmers’ cooperatives and farmer producer organisations (FPOs) across the state. Over 350 such cooperatives have been formed in the last 3 years. The Department and MBMA have been hand-holding these collectives so that they are able to replace the middlemen and transition to better production and marketing. For instance, the recent consignment of over 1.3 tonnes of pineapples getting shipped to Middle East was undertaken by the ‘Silchang Dimrimbri Palwa Adling IVCS’ of East Garo Hills District.
