The horticulture department of Tripura on Tuesday stated that in the last one month the state has supplied 172 lakh pieces of pineapple weighing 193.10 MT to different parts of India and Bangladesh.
The pineapples supplied from Tripura also included 113 MT of the world class ‘Queen’ variety.
As per media reports, Tripura farmers exported 100 MT of pineapples to Bangladesh while six consignments of the fruit have been supplied to the markets in Guwahati, the gateway to the Northeast, Kolkata and Delhi so far.
Reports said this year, except Bangladesh, pineapples have not been exported to any other countries.
Also read: Tripura Govt big plans for pineapple farmers rings hollow
A TNM report quoted officials as saying that the Tripura government through the Tripura Industrial Development Corporation (TIDC) has been making efforts to send more consignments of pineapple to markets outside the state and start value addition by processing the fruit.
The report quoted a senior official of the horticulture department of Tripura as saying: “The state government is committed to extend support to the pineapple growers and for this, it was declared as state fruit last year by President of India Ramnath Kovind.”
It has been reported that the pineapple growers have faced major crisis due to their failure to get the fruit sold in the market.
The farmers have reportedly said while the production of pineapple has increased manifold both the global and domestic traders have not shown much interest in buying the fruit this time.
Over 10,000 pieces of pineapple have reportedly been decomposed in orchard at Daudarani as no traders have come forward to buy the fruit.
In Sonamura this year, over 500 farmers cultivated pineapple, but they have also faced loss of investment in huge amount.