Chittoor District Mango Growers’ Forum convener B.N. Nageswara Rao on Tuesday appealed to Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu to take immediate steps to announce remunerative price for the mango produce and rescue the growers as gales and rain during the last two days caused extensive damage to thousands of tonnes of mangoes.
In a memorandum to the Chief Minister, the forum convener said that a majority of farmers in the rain-fed Chittoor district depend on mango production despite huge production loss due to drought conditions for several years. At a time when the mango growers were expecting heavy yield, rain and gales during the last two days wreaked havoc bringing down the ready-to-harvest crop in many mandals. With no takers for the fallen mango, the fixing of non-remunerative price for the remaining crop by the pulp industries hit the morale of mango growers across the district.
Mr. Rao said that the State government should intervene and work out remunerative price for the yield on the lines of the measures taken to rescue the sugarcane growers recently with the government itself purchasing the jaggery stocks.
