Bumper mango harvest tastes bittersweet

Unexpected windfall: A mango seller resting at his stall at the Avenida market in Manila. — AFP

Manila: An unusually long dry spell this year led to a glut of some two million mangoes in the Philippines, causing prices to collapse and revealing how the farming infrastructure is woefully ill-prepared for the turmoil stirred up by a rapidly changing, unpredictable climate.It was a bumper harvest that had consumers snapping up baskets full of the fruit in state-organised “mango festivals”, but burying farmers deeper in debt.

The worst hit was the main island of Luzon, which is roughly the size of South Korea.