First consignment of Nagpur oranges was flagged off to Dubai on 13^th February 2020 from Vashi, Navi Mumbai.Total 1500 crates were loadedin the refrigerated container from Vanguard Health Care(VHT) facility.Nagpur mandarin in one of the best mandarins in the world. Production of this fruit crop in central and western part of India is increasing every year. Mrig crop (monsoon blossom), which matures in February – March, has great potential for export since arrivals of mandarin fruit in international market are less during this period. According toMaharashtra State Agriculture Department 40 lakh hectare. land is under orange cultivation in Nagpur District and major orange growing pockets are Warud, Katol, Saoner, Kalameshwar and Narkhed in Nagpur and Amravatidistricts. In the whole region only one variety Nagpur Mandarin is grown.

For the implementation of the Agriculture Export Policy, (AEP) Nagpur District is being developed as a cluster for Nagpur Orange by APEDA. The APEDA officer in Mumbai has been nominated as a nodal officer for implementation of AEP and cluster development of Nagpur orange.

The first meeting was held on 30^th October 2019 last year under the chairmanship of District Collector, Nagpur. After the meeting a cluster development committee of stakeholders was constituted consisting of APEDA,National Research Centre for Citrus(NRC), Nagpur, Agri Department of Nagpur District, VANAMATI Nagpur, Maharashtra State Agricultural Marketing Board(MSAMB), Dr.PanjabraoDeshmukhKrishiVidyapeeth(Dr. PDKV), Nagpur MSME, Plant Quarantine Nagpur and MAHA Orange.

Subsequently a Buyer-Seller Meet cum Training programme on Nagpur Orange cluster was held on 5^th December 2019 at VANAMATI, Nagpur. Around 150 farmers from Nagpur District, Farmer Producers companies and seven exporters attended the training programme.Technical sessionsand interactions between farmers and exporters was conducted in the training programme. The main focus of the training programme was to increase the exports of Nagpur orange in the Middle East countries and to brand Nagpur orange in the Middle East. It was also explained to all exporters the importance of labelling each fruitand crates of Nagpur orange while exporting.

A field visit was organised on 6^th December last year with APEDA, MCDC, State Agriculture Department and exportersto orange growing area at Warud, Katol, Kalameshwar of Nagpur and Amravati districts. After the field visit exporters showedinterest for exporting of Nagpur orange.The interested exporters again visited the same orange growing pockets in the month of January this year.

One of the exporter procured oranges directly from the farmers of Warud Taluka and brought them to APEDA funded VHT Facility at Vashi, Navi Mumbai. At VHT pack house the orangeswere graded and sorted. New plastic crates were designed and developed by the exporter to carry 10 kgs per crate.

 The International Trade in 2018 for orange was USD 10183 million. India produced 8781 thousand tons of orange in 2018-19 (orange includes Mandarin, clementine).

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