Enhancing Income of Rural Women through Processing and Value Addition of Raw Mango Fruits in Malihabad, Uttar Pradesh: A Case Study

Mohammad Nagar Talukedari, a village in tehsil Malihabad of Uttar Pradesh is famous for the production of dried mango slices locally known as Khattai. Women folk are involved in this practice using old age technology. Some of the problems we identified were inferior quality of produce, inadequate drying, inefficient peeling and predominance of middlemen in the marketing channel. A total number of 60 rural women from small, marginal and landless farm families were roped in for hands on training to hone their skill for improved dry mango slice production. Our intervention included an improved method using mango peeler, solar dehydrator, preservative and marketing of produce through an NGO. This led to the enhancement of income to the tune of 50.98% in small, 50.61% in marginal and 47.67% in landless farm families. Use of mango peeler enhanced 4.50% slice recovery and reduced 26.49% time in peeling over the traditional knife. The solar dehydrator enhanced 8-10°C temperature over ambient temperature which helped in fast and uniform drying. The dried mango slices produced through improved method contains lower moisture (8.44%) and non enzymatic browning (0.136) whereas high titrable acidity (21.33%) and total phenol (0.718 g/100 g) as compared to traditional method.