Pineapple under agri export zone of India
P. Deb, P.K. Paul, N. Bhowmick and C.P. Suresh
Souvenir Programme, 7th International Pineapple Symposium 2010. 13-15 July, 2010, Persada Johor International Convention Centre, Johor Bahru, Johor, Malaysia. 126 p.
2010
บทคัดย่อ
Pineapple (Ananus comosus)is one of the important tropical major fruits of India. Though Thailand, Philippines, Brazil, Costa Rica are the major producers of pineapple, the area under quality pineapple production is in increasing trend in India. In view of the international demand for fresh and processed pineapple products and also on account of the concentration of pineapple growing in the district of Darjeeling (Siliguri subdivision), Jalpaiguri and Cooch Behar (Sadar subdivision) of West Bengal first Indian Agri Export Zone was announced during 2001 by APEDA. This project entails development of the high value produce through research and extension by a dedicated team of personnel, setting up of processing plants by private entrepreneurs and concerted market efforts with the help of various Government Agencies like Ministry of Food Processing Industry, National Horticulture Board, Ministry of Agriculture and APEDA. High density planting and year round production of 'Kew' pineapple is the most important features of pineapple production in this zone. A few of the farmers generally follow the proper harvesting and post harvest package of practices of pineapple. They poorly handle the fruits during loading, unloading for transport. Due to lack of cool chain a heavy loss of fruits is a common scene in this zone. But with the helps from different agencies the farmers are practicing better harvesting and post harvest packages. Packaging of fresh pineapples in CFB and wooden boxes for national and international market, processing of pineapple for development of value added products are nowadays in vogue. To fetch the better market price and also to utilize the market surplus during the seasonal huge production by the farmers are processed by different private companies like Dabur, Calypso to produce quality squash, canned pineapple, frozen pineapple, pineapple jam etc which are coming to the international market. This paper highlights the techniques of quality pineapple production and the post-harvest operations by the agri-export zones of India.