India’s biggest banana producing state, Maharashtra, has begun exports from a facility set up in Indapur by the State Agricultural Marketing Board.
The Board has established two other banana export centres in Savada in Jalgon and Vasamat in Hingoli, reported the Economic Times.
“We exported about 16 to 17 containers of bananas from Indapur to the Middle East during the last two months,” said Santosh Patil, a project officer with the Board.
Maharashtra’s banana growing regions, the largest in the country, have been given agricultural export zone status by the Agricultural Processing and Export Development Agency (APEDA).
India’s banana exports are in a stage of growth at the moment, with Unifrutti, Mother Dairy and Del Monte already exporting the fruit primarily to the Middle East.
Getting export-quality supply volume is the most difficult aspect at the moment, Del Monte’s senior vice president for the Asia-Pacific region Jimmy Tenazas told Fruitnet.com.
“Our program this year will be limited to a few containers per week due to strict Del Monte export quality requirements,” he said. “Longer term projection is hard to say; it depends on export quality supply availability.”
Mr Tenazas said the biggest opportunities lay in Indian farmers’ willingness to develop the banana export programme.
