VIJAYAWADA: In a major relief to the mango farmers, trading activity has begun partially at Asia’s one of the largest wholesale fruit markets at Nunna in the city suburbs.
Even as the trading activity of the fruit for the season commenced a week ago, only six shops out of a total 80 started its operations on the market premises following the corona scare.
For the last one week, the market has been receiving 20-30 tones of mangoes per day against the average supply of 80-100 tonnes per day in the earlier season.
With no option left, a section of the farmers from Nuzvid, A Konduru, Edara, Agiripalli, Vissannapeta and Adivinekkalam have started bringing their produce to the mango market despite facing shortage of labourers and transportation issues following the 21-day lockdown period enforced by the Centre to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
“Usually, the mango trading activity at the market commences after the Ugadi festival. However, this season the activity began on a slow note due to novel coronavirus. Fearing the deadly virus, several labourers from Prakasam, Guntur and twin Godavari districts had stayed away from the mango orchards,” said N Venkateswara Reddy, a farmer. Informing about the exports done from the market so far, Reddy said that around 25 truckloads of the popular mango varieties have been exported to Maharashtra, Haryana, Gujarat, Chhattisgarh, Assam, New Delhi and Rajasthan.