By Anil Pathak, Gandhinagar, 11 March 2013

If nature is in favour of farmers in Kutch, this border district is sure to produce around 80,000 tonnes of Kesar and also tonnes of other fruits like dates,Chickoo,grapes and pomegranates in this season according to horticulture experts who have high hopes that Kutch would be soon a biggest horticulture hub in the country.

With the perennial failure of monsoon the farmers were rather compelled to go for horticulture and in a short span of 10 to 12 years Kutch has become major exporter of Kesar – best quality mango which has reached to the Buckingham palace in London and also Sulltanate of Oman who have been relishing the fruit every year.

Inquiries with the market has shown that more than 3,000 tonnes of Kesar is exported to Europe,Gulf and other countries every year. While the total sale of mango fetches around Rs.250 crores to the mango growers who have been raising mango trees in a big way in areas like Mandvi, Mundra, Anjar and Bhuj.The farmers of Nakhatara have also started growing mango trees to secure more crop of mangoes in summer.At present the farming of mango trees have covered more than 8,000 hectors while 500 hectors are added every year as more and more farmers are coming forward for the plantation of mango trees in the district.

The mango growing farmers have been demanding facilities of cargo and clearance of customs from Bhuj airport for the direct export of the mango and other fruits but their demand has not yielded any results from the authorities.

A leading mango grower Batuksinh of Mau near Bhuj told this correspondent that if the government provided such facilities including processing units their exports could go multifold and Kutch would emerge as a major horticulture hub in Asia.This Kutchi farmer has set up his own processing unit and other facilities like cold storage and has been exporting 150 tonnes of Kesar to Gulf and Europe.” State and central government should appoint a special task force to study the horticulture crops in Kutch and on the basis of the report take necessary action for creating more facilities for the mango growers and other farmers growing fruits like Chikoo,dates,Pomegranates and grapes.” he pleaded.

Referring to the quality of dates the farmer said that the dates produced in Kutch are best and could stand into competition to dates produced In Israel which has been supplying to Gulf countries.If proper infra-structure is made available to the farmers growing dates the Gulf would perhaps prefer Kutch as against Israel.He regretted that in absence of required facilities our export has restricted as countries like America places order with Maharashtra which has a major processing unit for mango and secured a big chunk Rasnabad in Maharashtra.