Fruits should be thoroughly washed with fresh/salt water to remove pesticides and other chemicals

Consuming seasonal fruits is one of the best ways to stay healthy when braving scorching summer days. Doctors and dieticians say that fruits provided necessary nutrients while keeping diseases away. But, there is concern over carcinogenic (cancer-causing) agents being used to ripen the fruits quickly for higher volume of sales.

Some miscreants have cut down 50 fruit bearing mango trees on Wednesday night at Baribathan village under Sadar Upazila in Jhenidah.

This mango orchard owns Shahidul Islam son of Abul Hossain of Baribathan village of the district. Shahidul said, a few days back he protested an unethical activity of some criminals of his village.

On Wednesday night, they felled his 50 matured mango trees over previous enmity. He has filed a GD against Arman Ali, Azizul Islam, Lukman Ali and Surman Ali of the village. He demanded immediate arrest and punishment of the heartless criminals.

The Maharashtra government has decided to launch a project with $85 million funding from the Asian Development Bank, which will augment the agriculture infrastructure in the State.

The project is named Agribusiness Infrastructure Development Investment Program (AIDIP) and aims to achieve accelerated investment in agriculture sector and to support related infrastructure in rural areas. Funds would be used for expanding the whole agriculture product value chain in the State.

Before dawn every day he joins hundreds of wholesale traders at Delhi's Azadpur Mandi, a sprawling, chaotic market where trucks blare Bollywood music, porters haul huge brown sacks of fruit and vegetables and hawkers ply tea and cigarettes.

His own trade is in rosy red apples, laced with calcium carbide.

Bhim says he's been adding chemicals to his apples for years to artificially ripen them after a long journey from the Himalayan foothills, despite being told that it causes cancer.

The Karnataka Planters' Association (KPA), which is currently holding its coffee area scientific symposium (CASS) in Israel, plans to adopt kibbutz model of drip irrigation for their plantations.

“After visiting the Naan Dan Kibbutz near Tel Aviv, we were able to get a first-hand experience of irrigation facilities created to raise avocado, citrus, banana and mango plantations, installed by Netafim Ltd, one of the largest drip irrigation company,” said Mr Marvin Rodrigues, Chairman of KPA.

Indian Agriculture Research Institute has developed four hybrid mango varieties which promise a yield three-four times higher than the existing varieties. This is likely to scale up mango production in the next 10 years without any additional input cost. The varieties named Pusa Pratibha, Pusa Peetamber, Pusa Shreshth and Pusa Lalima possess traits of popular varieties like Dussehari and Neelam.

Acting on the directives of the Centre, States such as Karnataka, Gujarat, Rajasthan and Haryana are ready with their annual plans to boost horticulture production.

Besides these States, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Orissa have also drawn the annual action plan for 2012-13 horticulture year, sources in the Agriculture Ministry said.

The Centre has asked the States to ensure that Annual Action Plans for the horticulture year are cleared by April 15, they added.

2,000 Kg Of Unseasonal Alphonso Ready For Plucking By February

Surat: There have been cases of unseasonal fruit growing on an isolated tree but not in an entire orchard. An estimated 2,000 kg of mangoes on 100 trees of an orchard near Sarigam on the Gujarat-Maharashtra border will be ready for plucking by February.

Contrary to popular belief that trees fight pollution, several species of plants including cashew, tamarind, guava, mango, custard apple, gulmohar, banyan, sapota and jackfruit, are falling prey to heavy air pollution in the industrial city of Visakhapatnam.

In the land of sops, the latest is mango milkshake. The Tamil Nadu government is considering a plan to provide mango milkshake to mid-day meal centres, with the state milk cooperative, Aavin, directed to examine the proposal.