Category : Announcements
The Chorao Farmers Club has undertaken a new initiative expand its marketing of produce from member farmers. We believe that for India’s development to be more equitable than recently, more farmers need to be encouraged to become entrepreneurs in the food business.
Mukund Khandeparkar is one such farmer, who has decides to invest in a cottage-scale unit to process his own traditionally grown organic Goan cashew. The first experiments in this have been quite successful, though Mukund sees this as a part of a process that will create even more improvement in his family’s farm business model. Supported by his brothers and his family he has set up a small enterprise to process the cashew, which is sold via the Chorao Island Farmers Club brand and also from his own retail store.
The initial results of the experiment have been extremely promising with some success with direct retail sales, sales via supermarkets and also sales to a 5-star hotel client in Goa.
We’re happy to report that following much higher demand for our mangoes, we decided to double the number of boxes planned for Chorao Mancurad customers this year. Thanks to this support, our farmers also have also benefited considerably greater returns from participating in this initiative.
We look forward to the 2012 season and hopefully delivering to even more happy Mancurad lovers.
The Mancurad mango season is now underway, so we’d like to begin with a forecast for this year’s crop based on the early trends we are seeing…
The seasonal irregularities — late monsoon, cooler spring and presence of dew — has adversely affected the Mancurad crop this year. The primary difference is that the mangoes have been delayed (ripening only by end April, instead of early to mid April), but also the size of the mangoes had been smaller than usual.
This means that we have more mangoes in the Small category than in the Medium (Regular) category this year, and that the Large (Jumbo) mangoes are extremely rare compared to last year.
The good news is that the Chorao Mancurad mangoes are as delicious as ever. And because we have even more farmers joining in, they are going to be available in larger quantities than we’d planned.
Call the Chorao Farmers Club on +91-95525-25260 to book yours.
The pricing for this season will be as follows:
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Small Rs 265/- per dozen
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Medium (Regular) Rs 335/- per dozen and
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Large (Jumbo) Rs 430/- per dozen (if available).
We’ve had a lot of enquiries about Aamcho Chorao Mancurad Mangoes starting January 16th, so we thought that we’d share our plans with you…
1. First the bad news :-S. Our mangoes will be a little late because of the climate that we’ve had this year and are expected only around April 25th.
2. However, there is good news too 
. We will increase our supply of mangoes available for sale to 800 (1-dozen) boxes available to Mancurad fans from Goa and we will NOT have a 4-box limit like last time.
3. We’re opening up our orchards to you. Several of our customers last year mentioned an interest in visiting our organic mango orchards in Chorao. We had our first visit on Sunday, 27th March and are going to be having more weekend visits as the mangoes ripen (from April 10th onwards).
Please contact us if you’d like to be a part of these 4 hour excursions – Adults Rs. 100 and children below 12yrs FREE.
4. You can book now. Bookings for your mangoes are opening on April 1 (not an April Fool’s joke) and you can call us on +91-95525-25260 to book yours. Please keep in mind that deliveries will be on a first-come, first-served basis AFTER April 25th only.
5. Our Mancurad mangoes 
are still delicious, 100% naturally ripened, 100% organic, affordable and delivered to your doorstep. As usual, our prices will remain FIXED for the entire season —
Small Rs 265/- per dozen
Medium (Regular) Rs 335/- per dozen and
Large (Jumbo) Rs 430/- per dozen (subject to availability).
The Chorao Farmers Club moved into its new office in Chodan village on August 21st, 2010.
We became the first farmers club in Goa to set up our own office, and we will use this facility as a point of interaction with our members, clients, for storage of equipment and produce and for conducting training programs and other events.
Inauguration of Chorao Farmers Club Office
The inauguration was done by Dr. N.P. Singh (Director ICAR), Mr. Satish Tendulkar (Director of Agriculture) and Mr. Arun Shandilya (GM NABARD Goa) all of whom have been instrumental in supporting the Club in various activities.
According to Mr Arun Sandilya, “The Chorao example is a good model for the other farmers clubs in Goa, many of which are either not functioning regularly, or are only recently formed”.
At this event our Club members also outlined their ‘Vision for 2015′ which will serve as a reference for all our initiatives over the next 5 years. Read our Vision 2015.
Currently our office hours are:
Tuesdays – 10 AM to 12 PM and 4PM to 6PM AND Sundays – 10 AM to 12 PM and 4PM to 6PM
The Energy & Resources Institute’s (TERI) Western Regional Center, under one of its projects supported by the Toyota Foundation (Japan), has helped the Chorao Farmers Club acquire a Mechanical Paddy Transplanter. With part funding through TERI’s project and part assistance from the Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana (RKVY), the Chorao Farmers Club has purchased their first 8-Row Paddy Transplanter, from Goa Tractor and Tillers.
An Auspiscious Start: Director of Agriculture, Mr. Satish Tendulkar, breaks a coconut to an auspicious start
After experimenting with the transplanter last year, the Chorao Farmers Club decided to acquire this machine, which is also being used by six other farmers groups across the state. The Department of Agriculture is encouraging the transplanter in an attempt to modernise farming practices and provide farmers with an alternative to unreliable, often unavailable or expensive labour.
The Chorao Farmers Club, with assistance from the Department of Agriculture will transplant the Jyoti variety of red kernel rice in the villages of Chodan and Madel (5 ha each village) over the next 7-8 days.
The Farmers Club has resolved to avoid the use of chemical weedicides and pesticides as they believe these may be harmful in the long term and have been assisted by the Agriculture Department in identifying alternative methods of crop protection.
Says Gita Uskaikar from Chodan, who has recently been trained to raise the nursery as needed for the machine, “It is easy to raise this special nursery, but farmers must do it themselves on-site since it makes the process of transplantation easier. Now that our Club has its own machine, we will be able to systematically transplant paddy seedlings across the village”. The time saved while transplanting by using the machine is significant. The Club transplanted 1.5 ha (6000m2) in 5 hours, which would have otherwise taken four women, working together five days to complete.
Yogita Mehra from TERI adds, “There is much excitement among our farmers as they are keen to see the results and use the machine to revive the practice of winter paddy cropping in the village”.
Over the next year, the Chorao Farmers Club is also looking to acquire additional farm machinery that can help improve productivity and efficiency of their farming practices. This aspiration of the Club is going to continue to be supported financially by TERI and the Toyota Foundation, in addition to the support that will be provided for building entrepreneurial skills, providing training for new technologies and crops and innovative experiments in marketing and brand building.
