Rayagada: Considering heavy production of mango and lack of market facilities, Odisha’s Rayagada district administration has tied up with Odisha Rural Development and Marketing Society (ORMAS) to set up a mango processing unit in Kashipur block.
According to sources, the administration has already identified a building in Kashipur to set up the processing unit. The project will take off after the administration forms a trust and register it. The state government had earlier extended its approval on the mango processing unit to the administration.
The administration plans to produce juice, squash, jam, pulp and candy in the unit. It would procure locally produced mangoes for the benefit of the farmers.
Around 10,000 tonne of different varieties of mangoes are produced in the block every year from around 3,000 hectare of land. The mango trees bear fruit late due to cold climate in the block. When those get ripe and are sent for sale, the traders purchase at very low price from the farmers as the market is flooded with mangoes. As a result, the farmers have to bear loss.
It had led the district administration to send a proposal to the government for setting up the mango processing unit so that the farmers can get high return for their produce, the sources said.
