“It was a tough slap,” says businessman Mandjula Gandhi Roban.
Her startup, Mangopoint, is working on improving mango supplies. “Slop” came to Fruit Logistica, the main world production exhibition in Berlin.
“The representative of one of the main food traders of Europe visited our stall and said:” India has some of the best manns in the world. There is no doubt about this. But what you give is just a poison, “Rosaban said. He hinted at a huge amount of pesticides that apply to mango, often with dubious benefits.
We need a slap because few Indians – past and modern – are not touched by mango. Think about the chaos unleashed in the household of Lord Shiva when the Divine Wise of the meeting presented him with the Holy Mango, provided that he would be given only one of his sons. None of the parents would like to be put in this situation. Buddha often rested in the grove of manga. The Hindus, said the KT Achaya Nutrition historian, considers the tree “transformation of Prodijat”, a testimony to his strength.
And it’s powerful. Alexander’s army is said to have searched the mango garden and was besieged by diarrhea, causing him to ban the fruit. Kalidas equated the mango with the shots of the kama and called them breathing, soul and lips of spring. Sangam’s poetry is crowded with poems, comparing mango with a lover’s charm.
Mugolas also fell under the spell. Imam Posanda, one of my favorite, has a firm flesh, a tart taste and a poetic past. Popular folklore claims that Humayun, who escaped to Persia after his defeat, Suri Suri, had cases (which is why the variety is also called Humayun Posand).
Sinner, Holy, Emperor, God: Mango conquered them all.
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Mango comes in many varieties, each of which glued its local climate and soil, the celebration of the variety of India. Alfonso will not flourish in the tirchiras, and Banganapal to Uttar Pradesh.
While many note the sweets of fruits with Aamra, others love their acid, just dipped in salt and chili powder or make into different salted cucumbers. Others like their mango in a complex curry. On Puthanda or the Tamil New Year, when the flowers are blooming and manga still ripe, families are inflated on mango, which combines the sweets of Jugger with bitter flowers of the Nemanga and the sour manga, in a dish that is a n promine philosophy: reminding that a good year can hold all.
For something so fragrant, mango is surprisingly healthy. Nutritionists and doctors say people can eat mango, although they are high in carbohydrates until they exceed the daily carbohydrate boundary. Mangiferne, a compound contained in a mango letter, peel and, to a lesser extent, pulp can provide protection against inflammation, cancer and nervous degeneration, according to recent studies. It also improves insulin sensitivity in diabetics.
Any health benefits, however, are reduced by the widespread use of calcium carbide for rapid maturation and indiscriminately pesticides.
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Mangifer turkey, a child of the Indian monsoon, is formed by the heat and seasonal rains. India’s seasonality is a mango source.
In the monsoon, the tree grows and restores itself, creating a few tides of the leaves. Then, when the rains stop and the temperature drops, the flower tree. If everything goes well, the flowers turn into fruits that grow and have time.
But when the climate changes, the manga hurts. The problem, says Insram Ali, president of the Mango Indian manufacturers, “these are attacks on pests during flowering. Late rains and hot temperatures increase humidity, allowing pests to thrive.” Farmers respond by using more pesticides. It does not necessarily help, but practice has become a rampage; Knee reaction to a desperate situation.
Ali is concerned, like Roaban; Researchers have noted the change, and the same farmer that helps me grow mango on my farm in Madurai.
“Warm weather during the critical flowering phase can disrupt pollination, fertilization and ultimately a set of fruits,” says Shaylandra Rajan, former director of the Indian Agricultural Studies Council (ICAR)-Central Subtropical Horticulture. “Then, frequent rains, how fruit develops, especially in combination with high temperatures, as it becomes ordinary, increase the level of humidity, which leads to overstressing the pressure of pests and diseases.”
Mr. Dinesh, the director of the Indian Institute of Horticulture and Manga Researcher for three decades, outlined a plausible scenario. “Let’s say that about 40% of mango flowers in December. The room: should it water the tree to help it hold its fruits, but risks that the flowers suffer?
The use of pesticides becomes indiscriminate, especially when the farms are contracts. Contractors view chemicals as a means of protecting their investment. “This year, the Tamil Nadu, in which the insects did not respond to ordinary chemicals in Tamil Nadu in Tamil Nadu. We heard the farmers say,” I sprayed five times. “
Both he and the denew say that bioanthrols such as pheromone traps and solar laureates are more effective, but many farmers either do not know about them or reluctantly use them. Rajan from the ICAR Institute adds that many farmers see, or receive all the information and tips from their local merchant who make profit from more pesticides.
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Sometimes, the non -season rain, when the fruit matures that it sacrifices the development of mold, which affects its appearance and market value. “It reduces the sweets and shelf life of the fruit and makes the crop more vulnerable to the disease after harvest,” Rajan says.
The loss is enhanced by the lack of infrastructure of the farm gate. Mango, like other fruits, need objects where they can be ripe responsibly, and packs where they can be sorted and ready for delivery. Ten years ago, the National Cold Chain Development Center (NCCD) found that only 250 were against the 70,000 packages required in India.
Rooban and Venkatorak saw that they could make PackHouses for fruits when they lived in the US, so they decided they would invest in one when they return to the Mango farms in Tamil Nadu. This is exactly how Mangopoint was born.
Without closest facilities, Rooban says, Manga farmers are forced to carry their fruits for hundreds of kilometers. To keep the transportation cost to the low, they will fill each truck, often stuffing the fruit into each other. It damages the fruits below, especially those that are infected. Instead, Mangopoint picks up fruits from a 50 km radius. Farmers are learning to make their products in specially designed trays to prevent damage.
Where they used to fill the truck, choosing all the mangoes on their trees, even when they were at different ripening stages, now they make smaller and more frequent trips, and therefore choose only mature fruits. As a result, the waste level has fallen. So, despite the fact that transportation and labor costs are slightly higher, farmers make more money.
The startup also does not welcome the fruit, placing it in the camera with ripe papers. Fruits are estimated to get the best prices. Those who do not make the incision turn into jam or add to the muesli. This further improves the farmer’s income. Mangopoint, which started with one package a few years ago, has triple power.
Breeding the best varieties can also help. The heat causes the destruction of the tissues, which leads to impaired the tissue of the sponge in the alphons. High humidity encourages the fruit fly that blows through the skin of the fruit and lays the eggs into the flesh. Dinesh says that his institute develops such varieties as the Spring Arch, which has a good shelf life and a good aroma, and solves the problem of the sponge of the tissue in Alfonso. It holds back fruit flies to a certain extent when the fly is harder to break into thicker skin.
As a result, the Mangopoint “slap” works with farmers to minimize the use of pesticides. This, after all, is a compromise: to invest in the best infrastructure in the last mile, to take more growing practices (including biological pests), as well as to develop more elastic varieties, or just throw more pesticides on the problem and hope for the best.
If the climate continues to change, we hope that more farmers choose the first.
(Mridula Ramesh-it’s Climate Investor and Climate Author
