Climate change blamed as mango harvest goes sour in India

Rhys Blakely and Shivani Khanna, The Times 9 Jun 08;

The news will send a shiver through fruit aficionados the world over: India's mangoes, revered for millennia for their succulence, are becoming fewer and less sweet as changes in weather patterns affect harvests.

Official estimates suggest that three million tonnes of mangoes have been wiped out by a severe winter in India so far this year and the unseasonable deluges that have swept key growing regions in recent days may weigh further on production.

Forecasts already say that this year's crop of ten million tonnes will be down by a fifth on last year's. Farmers are now lobbying the Government to provide insurance schemes against the effects of unpredictable weather on mango crops.

Mango fans have said that changes in climatic conditions mean modern mangoes are less sweet. Producers said that the decline in sweetness is because the hot, dry winds that sweep across northern and western India in the summer and help to ripen crops have failed to blow.

Insram Ali, the president of the Mango Growers Association of India, said: “The mango fruit needs heat to ripen. And with the global warming affecting weather changes across the globe it has been hit hard.”

In Uttar Pradesh in northern India, the second-largest state in terms of mango production, farmers estimate that as much as half of the harvest has been wiped out by storms in April and May. Unseasonable rain in western India has encouraged pests, which have also lowered output.

The Mango Mela, an agricultural fair dedicated to the fruit, which was held in Bangalore last week, featured only 20 varieties, compared with more than 100 last year. One farmer said that 75 per cent of his crop had been wiped out by rain.

There are also claims that mango standards are slipping as sellers use more fertilizers and pesticides to boost yields. Some have been caught lacing mangoes with calcium carbide, which accelerates ripening but can cause dizziness and seizures in those exposed to the fruit.

Umakant Kumar, of Rajasthani Mahila Mandal, a Bombay-based institution similar to the Women's Institute in Britain, said: “How can there not be change in the flavour of mangoes? They are sprayed with all kinds of chemicals. Now there is a little bitterness in the fruit.”

Ketan Dhruv, the managing director of Karma Spices, in Gujarat, a maker of mango chutney, said: “There is definitely a big difference in the quality of mangoes and their sweetness. This is so because the mangoes are not organic anymore.”

The alleged decline in quality will unnerve much of India, where the fruit provides incomes for hundreds of thousands of smallholders. The subcontinent grows half of the mangoes in the world but exports a tiny portion.

With domestic demand more than ample other countries have had to depend on barter arrangements to supply their Indian mangoes — in recent years the US has offered Harley-Davidson motorcycles in exchange for the fruit.