Bhopal: NABARD showcases mangoes grown by tribal farmers

Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD), Madhya Pradesh regional office here in Bhopal organised the ‘5th State Level Mango Festival’ inaugurated by Nirupam Mehrotra, chief general manager (CGM), NABARD.

The Mango festival seeks to show case the produce of tribal farmers of NABARD's wadi project and Farmer Producer Organisations (FPOs) across Madhya Pradesh and ensure marketing linkages, Mehrotra said.

Mangoes will be available at main locations of the city through vehicles from June 10 to June19. Along with this, vehicles will also be selling mangoes through FPOs in Narmadapuram, Chhindwara, Sehore, Shivpuri, Gwalior, Betul, Balaghat and Rewa districts, he added.

The chief general manager also informed that NABARD is dedicated to strengthening and enriching agriculture and rural economy and as one of its interventions it set up the Tribal Development Fund (TDF) in 2003-04. Under this Fund, NABARD has promoted over 71,000 wadis through 93 projects in 29 districts of Madhya Pradesh benefitting more than 75,000 families.

Praveen, a member of Awam NGO associated with this project said, that the NGO has collected around 20,000 kilograms of mangoes from farmers associated with this project to sell in the festival.

Manjul Bharti a farmer participating in the festival said that the project has doubled the income of farmers.

Major varieties of mangoes such as Kesar, Mallika, Amrapali, Dasahari, Langra and Neelam have been brought by tribal farmers from Pichor (Shivpuri), Mandla, Unchera (Satna), Tamia, Mohkhed (Chhindwara), Bankhedi (Narmadapuram), Bhabhra (Alirajpur), Bijwar (Chhatarpur), Paraswara (Balaghat) and Bhagwanpura (Khargone) for the Mango Festival.

An important feature is that NABARD has provided grant assistance to various FPOs to buy mobile vans to facilitate the sale of their produce, Mehrotra said.