The first consignment of 21 tonnes of banana was harvested from various parts of the State

Tamil Nadu on Wednesday formally began export of bananas to Italy with State Agriculture Minister R. Doraikannu flagging off the first shipment through video conferencing from Chennai.

The first consignment of 21 tonnes of banana harvested from various parts of the State left Tamil Nadu Agricultural University here, which teamed up with the National Research Centre for Banana in facilitating the export.

Addressing a gathering that included Deputy Director General of Indian Council of Agricultural Research A.K. Singh, Director of National Research Centre for Banana S. Uma and president of Tamil Nadu Banana Growers' Federation A.P. Karuppiah the Minister said he was hopeful that the first shipment of Grand Nain bananas to Italy would pave the way for more such shipments from the State.

Mr. Karuppiah said the first consignment of 21 tonnes would leave Kochi port in a refrigerated container with the temperature maintained at 13.5 degree Celsius. The consignment would reach Trieste Port in Italy in three weeks. Through the shipment period and even thereafter the banana would have a good shelf life, as had been found during the trials carried out in the recent past.

He also said that as part of the trials, native varieties such as 'sevvazhi', 'nendran', 'poovan' and a few others were also sent and these had a good number of takers. Based on the response, the farmers would take steps to export the native varieties as well.

Helping them in the process would be the National Research Centre for Banana, which had developed protocols specific to the varieties.

The Minister added that the Government's role in facilitating the export was in keeping with former Chief Minister Jayalalithaa's vision of doubling production and trebling farmers' income.

Agriculture Secretary Gangandeep Singh Bedi said this was the first consignment of bananas from Tamil Nadu to Italy. The Government would take steps to help farmers export more Grand Nain bananas and also native varieties.

Mr. Karuppiah said that of the 90,600 ha under banana cultivation in the State, around 18,000 ha was under the Grand Nain variety. Farmers in Dharmapuri, Krishnagiri, Theni, Erode, and the Nilgiris had taken up the banana cultivation.

To facilitate exports, farmers followed the scientific and logistic protocol developed by the National Research Centre for Banana. And, this had helped the farmers increase their profit by Rs. 3 a kg.

The Centre's Director Ms. Uma said that along with the Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, the organisation had developed a system where the harvested banana was carried in a cable conveyor system to eliminate human intervention, cleaned, and packed to specification to meet the Italian market requirement.