Pakistan is turning out to be a lucrative export market for the banana growers of Maharashtra’s Jalgaon district, which accounts for around two-thirds of the fruit’s total production in the state.
Though India ranks No 1 in the world in banana production and Maharashtra tops the tables locally, exports from India have been negligible so far.
?There is a good demand for bananas from Pakistan. Moreover, banana growers in Jalgaon would not like to take the risk of exporting their produce to Europe,? Dnyandev Mahajan, chairman of MahaBanana told FE. According to Bhagwat Patil, president, Banana Growers Association of India (an association of some 5,000 member farmers), the demand from Pakistan for bananas from India has been good unlike other markets where a lot of precautions are required. In the last two years, Pakistan has turned out to be a good market for this crop, he said, adding that around 2,000 truckloads of bananas have been sent to this market last season. This season, around 90 truckloads are being sent to Pakistan on a daily basis, Mahajan said. Every truckload contains around 1.5 tonnes of bananas. Farmers have been getting a price of Rs 1,000 per quintal.
The Directorate of Agriculture Marketing and the Maharashtra State Agricultural Marketing Board ( MSAMB) established “Mahabanana” organisation at Jalgaon to overcome constraints in export of banana from India. With the help of MSAMB, Mahabanana has undertaken trial export of banana to Dubai for a couple of years. Mahajan however, pointed out that the exports to Dubai were not taking off as planned and therefore the organisation has been focusing on Pakistan this year. According to MSAMB officials, the organisation had begun box packing of bananas to Pakistan where it was earlier sold in a loose form. This helps farmers get a better price. Planting of the crop has just begun and the peak season begins from June until Diwali, he said. Last season, however, the crop was badly hit due to rains and unseasonal hailstorms as a result of which production was hit by 50% due to black spots, he added. This year, apart from Pakistan, most of the crop from Jalgaon is being sold in states like Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Jammu & Kashmir, Punjab, Haryana and Jharkhand. This season around 3,25,000 tonnes of the crop is expected to be produced.
The Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (Apeda) believes that India has tremendous export potential for bananas and has therefore declared eight traditional banana growing districts in Maharashtra as agricultural export zones (AEZs), covering the districts of Jalgaon, Dhule, Nandurbar, Buldhana, Hingoli, Parbhani, Jalna, Nanded and Wardha.
Apeda has also opened a couple of export facilitation centres at Jalgaon and Hingoli. However, farmers have been shying away from these centres since the rates have been pretty high, a local farmer said. Maharashtra has around 80,000 hectares of land under banana plantation, of which about 50,000 hectares is in Jalgaon.
