Commodity Online
KOLKATA: West Bengal accounts for forty percent of the mango exports from the country and with exports likely to go up this year, Bengal cultivators stand to gain.

Participating in an exhibition on mangoes here, R K Mandal, Assistant General Manager, Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (Apeda) said that mango growers in the state should take more initiatives to export home-grown mangoes.

Mohanta Chatterjee, the state minister of food processing industry and horticulture urged the growers to adopt good agricultural practices, pre-harvest, post harvest and also cultivate organic mangoes which are in high demand in global markets.

“Malda” mango of West Bengal is sought after in export markets. However, of late the ‘Lakhanbhog’ variety is gaining acceptance in the UK market and efforts are on to gain US markets too.

West Bengal government on its part has also taken initiatives to set up several export-enabling infrastructure, with financial assistance from the Centre and Apeda. As part of the endeavour, a state-of-the-art pack house has been set up at Malda and another is under construction at Barasat.

The perishable cargo centre, built at an investment of Rs 6 crore at the Netaji Subhas International airport in Kolkata, has also become operational.

Fresh mango exports from India are expected to go up to 1 lakh tonne this year against an estimated export of 80,000 tonne last year. The growth in the fruit’s export is expected to be driven by Indian mangoes’ growing acceptance in the world market for its quality, opening up of Japan’s market in recent times and resumption of mango export to the US since the middle of last year, after a gap of 17 years.