Ready, aam, fire: India's most treasured fruit is in danger, says Mridula Ramesh

Hindustan Times

2 days ago

'It was a hard slap in the face,' says entrepreneur Manjula Gandhi Rooban.
Her start-up, MangoPoint, works to improve mango supply chains. The 'slap' came at Fruit Logistica, the world's premier produce trade fair, in Berlin.
'A representative of one of Europe's top food merchants visited our stall and said, 'India has some of the best-tasting mangoes in the world. There is no doubt about that. But what you're giving your population is just poison',' Rooban says. He was alluding to the vast amounts of pesticide applied to mango trees, often with dubious benefit.
We need the slap, because few Indians — past and present — are untouched by the mango. Think of the chaos unleashed in Lord Shiva's household, when the divine sage Narada presented him with a sacred mango on condition that it only be given to one of his sons. No parent would like to be put in such a situation. The Buddha often rested in mango groves. Hindus, the food historian KT Achaya noted, consider the tree a 'transformation of Prajapathi himself', a testament to its power.
And powerful it is. Alexander's army is said to have ransacked a mango orchard and been besieged by diarrhoea, causing him to ban the fruit. Kalidasa equated the mango bloom with Kama's arrows, and called them the breath, soul and lips of Spring. Sangam poetry is replete with verses comparing the mango to a lover's charms.
The Mughals fell under its spell too. Imam Pasand, one of my favourites, has firm flesh, a tart sweetness, and a poetic past. Popular folklore has it that Humayun, who fled to Persia after his defeat by Sher Shah Suri, had cases shipped to him there (which is why the variety is also called Humayun Pasand).
Sinner, saint, emperor, god: the mango conquered them all.
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Mangoes come in many varieties, each one sculpted by its local climate and soil, a celebration of India's diversity. An Alphonso will not thrive in Tiruchirappalli nor will the Banganapalle in Uttar Pradesh.
While many celebrate the fruit's sweetness with aamras, others love its sour side, simply dipped in salt and chilli powder or made into a variety of pickles. Others like their mango in a complex curry. On Puthandu or Tamil New Year, when neem flowers bloom and the mango is yet to ripen, families feast on manga pachadi, which blends the sweetness of jaggery with bitter neem flowers and sour mango, in a dish that is edible philosophy: a reminder that a good year can contain all flavours.
For something so flavourful, the mango is surprisingly healthy. Dietitians and doctors say people can eat mangoes even though they are high in carbohydrates, as long as they don't exceed their daily carb limit. Mangiferin, a compound found in mango leaves, peel and, to a lesser extent, pulp, may offer protection against inflammation, cancer and neural degeneration, according to recent studies. It also improves insulin sensitivity in diabetics.
Any health benefits, however, are diminished by the widespread use of calcium carbide for rapid ripening, and by the indiscriminate application of pesticides.
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Mangifera indica, a child of the Indian monsoon, is shaped by the heat and seasonality of the rains. The seasonality of India is the mango's lifeblood.
In the monsoon, the tree grows and renews itself, producing several flushes of leaves. Then, as the rains stop and temperatures dip, the tree flowers. If all goes well, the flowers turn to fruit, which grow and ripen.
But when the climate changes, the mango is hurt. The problem, says Insram Ali, president of the All India Mango Growers' Association, 'is the pest attacks during the flowering stage. Untimely rains and hot temperatures increase humidity, allowing the pests to thrive.' Farmers respond by applying more pesticides. This doesn't necessarily help, but the practice has become rampant; a knee-jerk reaction to a desperate situation.
Ali is concerned, and so is Rooban; researchers have noted the shift, and so has the farmer who helps me grow mangoes on my farm in Madurai.
'Warm weather during the critical flowering phase can disrupt pollination, fertilisation and ultimately fruit-set,' says Shailendra Rajan, former director of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR)-Central Institute for Subtropical Horticulture. 'Then, frequent rains as the fruit develops, especially when coupled with high temperatures, as is becoming common now, raise humidity levels, leading to a surge in pest and disease pressures.'
MR Dinesh, retired director of the Indian Institute of Horticultural Research and a mango researcher for three decades, outlined a plausible scenario. 'Let's say about 40% of the mango tree flowers in December. If it rains for several days, some flowers will fall. The cloudy weather that follows is ideal for blossom blight, powdery mildew growth and anthracnose (a fungal disease). Flowering suffers and stops. Then, it doesn't rain for two months; the mango tree will flower again in February. But by now, some of the initial flowers have given rise to pea-sized fruit. The farmer is in a quandary: should he water the tree to help it hold onto its fruit, but risk the flowers being affected? Whatever he chooses, part of his crop will suffer.'
Pesticide use becomes indiscriminate particularly when farms are contracted out. Contractors see the chemicals as a means of protecting their investment. 'There was a huge hopper problem in the Tenkasi region in Tamil Nadu this year, in which the insects did not respond to the usual chemicals. We heard farmers say 'I sprayed five or six times.' After five or six times, the mango is not fit for human consumption,' says Prasanna Venkatarathnam, Rooban's husband and co-founder, with her, of MangoPoint.
Both he and Dinesh say bio-controls, such as pheromone traps and solar pest catchers, are more effective, but many farmers are either unaware of them or are reluctant to use them. Rajan of the ICAR institute adds that many farmers are beholden to, or get all their information and advice from their local merchant, who profits from pushing more pesticide.
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Sometimes, unseasonal rain as the fruit matures leaves it prey to sooty mould development, which affects its appearance and market value. 'This reduces the sweetness and shelf life of the fruit and makes the crop more vulnerable to post-harvest diseases,' Rajan says.
The loss is amplified by the lack of farm-gate infrastructure. Mangoes, like other fruit, need facilities where they can be ripened responsibly, and packhouses where they can be sorted and readied for shipping. Ten years ago, the National Centre for Cold-Chain Development (NCCD) found that, against the 70,000 packhouses needed in India, there were only 250.
Rooban and Venkatarathnam had seen what packhouses could do for fruit, when they lived in the US, so they decided that they would invest in one when they returned to their families' mango farms in Tamil Nadu. That is how MangoPoint was born.
Without nearby facilities, Rooban says, mango farmers are forced to transport their fruit over hundreds of kilometres. To keep transport costs low, they will fill each truck, often stuffing the fruit into sacks one atop another. This damages the fruit at the bottom, especially those that are infected. MangoPoint, instead, picks up fruit from across a 50-km radius. Farmers are trained to stack their produce in specially designed trays to prevent damage.
Where earlier they would fill a truck by picking all the mangoes on their trees, even if they were at different stages of ripening, now they make smaller and more frequent trips and so pick only the mature fruit. As a result, waste levels have plummeted. So, even though transport and labour costs are slightly higher, farmers make more money.
The start-up also ripens fruits non-chemically, by placing it in a chamber with ripe papayas. Fruits are graded to fetch the best prices. Those that don't make the cut are turned into jam or added to muesli. This further improves farmer incomes. MangoPoint, which began with one packhouse a few years ago, has tripled capacity.
Breeding better varieties can help as well. Heat causes tissue breakdown, leading to the spongy tissue disorder in the Alphonso. High humidity encourages the fruit fly, which burrows through the fruit's skin and lays eggs in the pulp. Dinesh says his institute has developed varieties such as the Arka Suprabhat that have a good shelf life and good flavour, and solves the spongy tissue issue in the Alphonso. It deters fruit flies to some extent as the fly finds harder to burrow into the thicker skin.
As a result of that 'slap', meanwhile, MangoPoint is working with farmers to minimise pesticide use. That, in the end, is the trade-off: invest in better last-mile infrastructure, adopt better growing practices (including biological pest control), and develop more resilient varieties, or just throw more pesticide at the problem and hope for the best.
With the climate continuing to change, let's hope more farmers opt for the former.
(Mridula Ramesh is a climate-tech investor and author of The Climate Solution and Watershed. She can be reached on [e-mail])