King of fruits gives Telangana women SHGs a taste of success, path to e-trading

HYDERABAD: It’s a model ripe for the picking by others. The king of fruits is powering women self-help groups (SHGs) in Telangana to trading glory. After tasting success in local markets, about 2,460 women from these SHGs have taken the next big step: They began marketing mangoes on e-commerce portals on Sunday.
It was a raw deal till a few years ago. Exploited by middlemen and local traders, most of these women from the farming community ended up selling mangoes for just Rs 22-26/kg.
But by converting the SHGs into bigger Farmer Produce Organisations (FPO), these women have now cut out middlemen and are now getting a much better price.Four FPOs have been formed in Nagarkurnool, Jagtial, Mancherial and Mahbubnagar, covering 94 villages, by the Society of Eradication of Rural Poverty (SERP) of the Telangana government.
“We have trained them in better cutting practises, packaging and how to save travel cost. Now, we want these women farmers to enter commodities sale directly for every product,” said Pausumi Basu, chief executive officer of SERP. “Part of the amount is retained by FPOs for transportation charges. The women are even trained in ripening the mangoes. They get the fruits to Gaddiannaram market and ripen them before packing them into 1.5 kg boxes.”
The women entered the local market about a week ago and are set to touch the 1 lakh figure in the next few days. “Till Saturday they had sold 60,000 kg, including about 20,000 kg of the famous Baingenpalli mangoes. We expect to cross the 1 lakh mark in the next few days as sale will continue for another three weeks,” a buoyant official said.
Several major retail supply chains have also been sourcing it from them as the raw fruit is neatly packed and cut with better technology.
“Earlier traders used to come from Delhi and we were not sure about the payment. But now we are getting payments by cheques, ” Lavanya, a farmer and FPO member from Jagtial told TOI.