The orange land is in proximity to the red corridor, hotbed of Maoist insurgency. Inside the orange city, just behind Nagpur railway station is the famous orange market (santra mandi), a wholesale fruit market. The route to the market is circuitous, passing through the labyrinthine narrow roads; a detour from the rope wire bridge, known as Jhoola Bridge, alongside the station to maintain one-way-traffic adds an extra 3 kilometres to the distance.
As all over India, before the signs of an approaching fruit and vegetable market are visible, a peculiar rancid smell wafts through the air and hits the nostrils. It is not a very interesting place for peregrination on a Sunday morning in November. Nagpur is at the centre of India, the central milestone just a kilometre away from the market, connecting the north and the south, but these similarities seem to remind of the old phrase ‘unity in diversity’ in a rather undesirable way.
Just like any other fruit, orange has its own importance for nutritional and health benefits including the famed vitamin C. Orange producers are also at the base of supply chains dealing in juice and jam, squash and syrup, beverages and marmalades, apart from supplying fresh table fruit.
On entering the orange market through an old arched gate, eyes fall on crates and cartons, stacked in tiers, with strands of chopped straw and dry grass, used as cushion, jutting out. These cater to local and regional supply chains. Then as the eyes wander, what you see are round fruit with green skin that on closer examination turn out to be oranges. You feel tricked; was not the colour itself—orange—based on the fruit?
Continuing exploration, all of a sudden, I sight upon a bunch of shiny orange-coloured oranges, stacked beside a few white cardboard cartons sporting a label, export-quality. Well, short of going into a Wordsworthian ecstasy (‘Ten thousand I saw at a glance, a host of golden daffodils’), pleased I am. This is the famed Nagpur orange or the Nagpur Mandarin (NM), with a botanical name, Citrus reticulate Blanco.
Last year in April 2014, Geographical Indication (GI) status was bestowed upon Nagpur orange, GI tag 385 along with a logo, signifying that Nagpur oranges have ‘a specific geographical origin and possess qualities or a reputation that are due to that origin’. The GIs are part of WTO Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement of which India is also a signatory. By getting a GI, Nagpur orange joined other notable national and international products: Darjeeling Tea, Nashik Grapes, Welsh lamb, Scotch beef, Champagne, Roquefort cheese, to name a few. Though Nagpurians may feel pride over award of GI tag to NM, its distant cousin in Karnataka, another mandarin, Coorg Orange already has had that distinction since 2006, full eight years before the NM made it to the hallowed list.
But NM lays claim to superiority due to unique qualities: its particular blend of sugar and citric acid imparts a different taste than those mandarins grown in Coorg, Sikkim, Orissa, Assam, Meghalaya and elsewhere; peeling it off the sleeves is easier because the flesh does not stick to the rind compared to other varieties such as Valencia, Hamlin, or Satguda; it has a deep orange colour, has a peculiar aroma, and is geoid in shape. It has a royal connection too; the folklore has it that a century and a half ago, Raghuji Raje Bhonsale introduced the fruit in the Vidharbha region.
Getting the GI tag means only the farmers, who grow the fruit complying with the specific conditions, in Vidarbha and three adjoining districts of Beitul, Chhindwara and Seoni in Madhya Pradesh, can lay claim to its use. On the other hand, farmers, commission agents and brokers, who brought a significant volume of produce grown in other regions such as Pune, Ahmadnagar and Suratgarh, Rajasthan to Nagpur and sold it off as NM, cannot do so any longer.
Many in the supply chain hope that exclusivity leading to scarcity would make the Nagpur orange more valuable and benefit them. This is a moot point. Tangible gains are yet to be visible. In all likelihood, this will not happen in the short-term at least. Even though the overall supply under the GI tag would be less , the demand-supply dynamics raising either export or domestic price would not happen, because NM is not so well known internationally, say, like Pinggu peaches from the eponymous district north of Beijing, China or the Roquefort cheese from the region in France or its direct competitors Florida oranges.
More so, it is not as old as Gruyere cheese from Switzerland, in existence since 161 A.D. Nor would the average domestic Indian consumers be willing to pay a high price for the GI tag, when they can get exactly the same variety from Rajasthan or Madhya Pradesh or even a substitute variety.
And substitutes are aplenty as the figures tell. According to National Horticulture Board, out of 3431.42 MT of various varieties of oranges produced in India in 2013-14, Punjab itself produced 1017.73 MT, Madhya Pradesh produced 894.43MT and Maharashtra produced only 742.50 MT, including the NM.
Though India is among the top five orange producing countries of the world, her quantities are meagre compared to top most producers. Brazil, U.S. and China rank as number one, two and three producers, respectively, with India at number four, followed by Mexico at fifth position. Whereas Brazil produces around one-third of the worlds’ total production; U.S. and China combined produce another one-third, and India produces only one-ninth of world’s production. So, even if the NM were the best of the species, sustained marketing would still be needed. Already few groups of farmers have obtained Global Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) certificate, mandatory for European countries.
(In part 2, I will cover the orange cultivation, hazards and power asymmetry in the orange supply chain)
Prashant K Singh is a logistics and supply chain management professional with the Indian Air Force. The views are personal.
He tells how supply chains & logistics affect everything around us on his blog, Unshackled, a part of Business Standard's platform, Punditry.
He tweets as @ZenPK
