Munnar: The Horticorp has extended a helping hand for strawberry farmers in Vattavada who are struggling after being unable to sell the fruits during lockdown. The subcentre of Horticorp in Vattavada started procuring strawberries from farmers from Sunday onwards.
The farmers were in a crisis as they could not sell harvested fruits for the past two weeks. Following this, Munnar Horticorp Centre assistant manager R. Jijo and team decided to procure the fruits. On the first day, 100 kilograms of fruits were collected from five farmers for Rs 175 per kilogram. There are 75 strawberry farmers in Vattavada alone.
It is planned to process the strawberry procured from Vattavada along with the fruits collected from Horticorp strawberry park in Munnar and to make value added products from them and sell it in the market. Before lockdown was imposed, ripe strawberry fruits were of huge demand in the market.
But after lockdown came into force, tourists stopped coming and this affected the sale of fruits. In this situation, the Horticorp came forward to help the farmers by procuring the crops. Apart from strawberry, Horticorp will also procure vegetables produced in Vattavada region.
