HT Bureau
GUWAHATI, July 29: Following on the successful export of Khasi mandarin last year, the department of agriculture and farmer’s welfare, government of Meghalaya and Meghalaya Basin Management Agency (MBMA) has recently facilitated market linkages of over 1.3 tonnes of Pineapples to the Middle East. This is part of 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, but more importantly our farmers are enjoying the fruit of their labour with up to 2 times increase in price realisation from these trades.
The efforts closer home have 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) for taking in larger quantities and over 23 tonnes of Pineapples have been processed by the unit in the first week of its operation.
