Japan to taste Indian mangoes after 20 yrs

MUMBAI: After over two decades, India on Friday exported its first commercial consignment of mangoes to Japan from Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport.

The first consignment of 882 kg, a combination of langra and chausa, from Bharti’s JV agriventure, FieldFresh Foods, was destined for Itochu, a Japanese general trading company, said KS Money, chairman, Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (Apeda). The value of the consignment was $5,000 (costs & freight).

Addressing the media here on Friday, Mr Money said that out of nine possible varieties, the Japanese government had approved six Indian varieties for import. These include langra, chausa and mallika (cultivated in UP and West Bengal), Alphonso (Maharashtra), Kesar (Maharashtra & Gujarat) and Banganpalli (Andhra Pradesh).

The other three include Dushheri (on which data is still awaited), Neelam and Totapuri. In the late 1990s, Apeda had carried out vapour heat treatment (VHT) trials, at the instance of the Japanese government, on the nine varieties to establish protocol for export to Japan.

Japan had imposed a ban on import of Indian mangoes in 1986 on the grounds of infestation by melon fruit fly and oriental fruit fly. After a lengthy procedure, and the efforts of commerce minister Kamal Nath, the Japanese ministry of agriculture, forestry and fisheries lifted the import ban on fresh mangoes from India on June 23, ’06.

Out of annual mango production of 12m tonnes, 52,381 metric tonnes are exported to countries like Bangladesh, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Nepal and Bahrain. Apeda, said Mr Money, is working with BARC on a protocol for mango exports to the US, which insists on a process involving the irradiation of mangoes.

In fiscal ’06, export of Apeda governed scheduled and non-scheduled products stood at Rs 19,397 crore, up 19% from Rs 16,255 crore in FY05. Of this, processed fruits and vegetables clocked growth of 122.3% year-on-year, floriculture and seeds registered a 46.2% increase, fruits and vegetables (57.1%) and livestock product exports rose 69.4%.

Basmati rice exports registered 9.3% rise in exports while wheat and other cereals showed negative growth of 61.2% and 34.2% respectively over the previous fiscal.

Mr Money said growth would have been substantially higher than the 15% annual export growth target set by Ministry of Commerce for Apeda in the 10th plan had it not been for these two product categories.

In a bid to boost exports Apeda has kicked off many initiatives including a direct-to-retailer strategy, under which it has initiated a dialogue with well-known Indian corporates in agri business to establish direct retail contacts with large foreign supermarkets and retail organisations.

Market access initiative programme will be utilised to implement this programme said Mr Money. Apeda has also been negotiating equivalence with the European Commission on behalf of the commerce ministry since ’02.

Now, India has established equivalence of National Programme for Organic Production (NPOP) with EU for export of oragnic products. This will facilitate the acceptance of certificates issued by the certificate agencies in India, as per NPOP standards, by all importing countries of EU.