The Philippines is struggling under the weight of a sweet, but troublesome burden: a glut of 2 million mangoes.
Philippine Secretary of Agriculture Emmanuel Pinol said mango farmers had reported an “unusual increase” in the harvest, which they had attributed to El Nino, which has led to unusually hot, dry weather this year.
On the island of Luzon alone there is a surplus of about 2 million kilograms of mangoes, according to Pinol, an oversupply that has led the price to drop from 58 pesos (US$1.11) to as low as 25 pesos per kilogram.
Pinol stressed the urgency of dealing with the glut before the fruit went to waste and sent the price of mangoes crashing further, hurting farmers, saying: “We need to do something about this in the next two weeks.”
In a bid to make sure that the excess mangos do not rot, the Philippine Department of Agriculture has launched a marketing campaign, dubbed “Metro Mango,” to try to shift 1 million kilograms of the fruit in Metro Manila, with stalls selling mangoes to be put up all around the capital throughout this month.
The fresh mangoes will be sold at 25 pesos to 50 pesos a kilogram to entice buyers, who will get the low prices only if they buy in bulk.
The department has also launched cooking classes to teach people how to cook with mangoes and will be holding a mango festival in the middle of the month in a bid to drum up demand for the fruit.
Some farmers in Luzon, where the oversupply is concentrated, have taken to giving away their mangoes free, hanging bountiful bags of the fruit outside the gates of their farms.
Foreign interest in the cheap mangoes is helping ease the burden.
A Japanese fruit importer has pledged to purchase 100,000kg of the mangoes, though this still leaves 1.9 million kilograms to shift.
Pinol said it were also hoping to increase daily mango imports to Hong Kong and Dubai.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not