A tightrope walk for Chittoor's mango farmers

When a middleman told Rajendra, a young mango farmer from Yadamarri mandal near Chittoor, that he could take his 'totapuri' mango stocks to an MNC pulp-making centre, he thanked his lucky stars.

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He had been trying to find takers for the produce from his modest 30 acre mango orchard on the Gudiyattam Road for quite some time and was worried his fruits might rot on the orchard itself.

Rajendra swiftly arranged for the labour to harvest and load six tonnes of his best mangoes. He could only pay part of the wages then, but promised the workers that he would pay balance amount after selling the produce. On June 12, he set out to the procurement centre located on the Chittoor-Puttur highway 30 km away, certain that 'one of India's largest pulp-making units' would take his produce. But as his tractor-trailer approached the unit, he began to notice trailers laden with mangoes parked on either side of the highway. Not one or two, around 30 of them. Rajendra's heart sank, for he knew what that meant: a queue, stretching for over two kilometres, and he was at the very end of it.