The application of biological technologies has allowed producers to increase the export of ataulfo mango from the region of Soconusco, according to Alfredo Cerdio Sanchez.
In an interview, the chairman of the Local Board of Plant Health of Chiapas' Ataulfo Mango Regulatory Council, said that last year they had exported at least 23 thousand tons to the United States, 7,000 tons to Canada, and that they had opened other markets with a new route to Europe via Tapachula-Cancun-London-Amsterdam-Madrid.
He said that the first shipment of the 2017 season to Europe departed on Friday and that they had been marketing the mango in the United States for the past week, which favors producers and helps the area create jobs for transporters and field workers, as well as financing the acquisition of machinery, equipment and irrigation projects.
Cerdio Sanchez said that they had managed to increase the demand and export volume thanks to the joint efforts carried out with El Colegio de la Frontera Sur (ECOSUR), SENASICA, the State Government, and producers of Ataulfo mango for export to achieve a high quality product.
He highlighted the biological barriers project that they are carrying out in coordination with Ecosur to combat the fruit fly, which has yielded significant results in improving production.
He said that they had realized that, year after year, they were using more and more insecticides and that they had been unable to control the fly, so they contacted researcher Paul Liedo Fernandez in search of an alternative; after which the government made an initial investment of 1,500,000 pesos to release sterile flies on 15 thousand hectares to control the pest.
Producers have also achieved a drastic reduction of larval batches in packaging, which has allowed them to have healthy fruit to export to the United States, Canada, and several European countries.
They have begun to get rid of chemicals on which they relied massively, which benefits the crops and the people, as these agrochemicals have caused damage to the population, especially in Chiapas, where there is a high rate of cancer in children and women.
Getting rid of those large quantities of chemicals that are dumped into the environment has improved the population's health and pest control.
Source: nvinoticias.com