Orange Produce Declines in Manipur

Guwahati, Dec 16 : Despite Orange production being promoted in a big way in Manipur with even the annual Orange Festival, mass decline in Orange production is being experienced with even many orange growers shifting to a new avenue with their Orange orchards in Manipur’s Orange district -Tamenglong- steadily withering away.

Tamenglong, the Orange district of Manipur is likely to lose this famous juicy fruit if urgent counter measures are not undertaken right away. Although Orange growth is still visible in the district, the orchards are fast disappearing.

According to the Orange growers of the largest Orange producing district of Manipur, their orchard are steadily dying due to wide spread disease.

Most of the orange orchards are dried up and crop production has decreased to over 80 percent.

This massive decline of the orange plantation is a terrible blow to Manipur’s most underdeveloped district.

With the economy of the orange farmers severely affected, the district administration is keen to devise ways to rejuvenate the Orange production in the District through training orange growers in scientific plantation and management by roping in experts of Soil Conservation and horticulture dept and central agriculture university.

According to the experts, the current predicament of the Orange growers of Tamenglong is a direct result of the negligence of the growers themselves and their lack of scientific management.

Most orange plants grown in the district are suffering from nutrient deficiency and unscientific method of management make them susceptive to disease and insect-pest attack, resulting in the massive withering of plants.

According to Manipur Horticulture department, out of the total produce of about 31,968 metric tonnes of oranges in Manipur, Tamenglong contributed 17,311 metric tones in 2008-09.

If the findings of the experts are true, Orange production of Tamenglong can go up if growers adopt scientific method of plantation and management.

However, bottlenecks such as transportation, lack of organized marketing opportunity and frequent bandhs and blockade continue to plague the orange growers of Tamenglong.

While the State govt’s participation in the Orange festival is encouraging, the administrative should look into the many grievances of the Orange growers of the district and take up concrete steps to address them so that the resource of the state can be hardness for economic betterment of its people.