Anantapur: A representative of a European company visited the district on Sunday to export bananas from Anantapur district.

On the orders of District Collector Dr V Vinod Kumar, Patrick, Founder and Executive Chairman of the European company Faitrasa, visited various parts of Anantapur district under the auspices of the horticulture department.

First, he visited the Elite Biotech Tissue Culture Lab in Raminepalli, Raptadu mandal and learned about the details of the tissue culture banana plants being produced there from the lab MD Raghavendra.

Later, he visited Kadavakallu village in Putlur mandal and inspected the cleaning and packing methods of SK Banana Company, how they collect bananas from the orchards, how they pack them in 13 kg and 7 kg boxes.

He also enquired from the farmers about the use of covers for bananas as part of the fruit care activity to protect the bananas from excessive sunlight, dust and insects. Next, he visited the Siddhartha cold storage unit in Chottukuru village in Tadipatri mandal and expressed satisfaction with the cold rooms there.

Tadipatri Municipal Chairman JC Prabhakar Reddy visited Siddhartha cold storage unit and met Patrick from Europe and asked him to collect fruit products such as bananas, pomegranates etc. from the farmers of Tadipatri and Anantapur and promote exports to European countries.

Speaking on the occasion, District Horticulture Officer Narasimha Rao said district products were being sent to Arabian countries like Iran, Iraq and UAE (Dubai) so far, and a representative of Europe has been called to the district to send district products to countries like Switzerland, England and Russia. Joint Director (Horticulture) Devamuni Reddy, Raptadu horticulture officer Ratnakumar, Putlur horticulture officer Shailaja, Tadipatri horticulture officer Umadevi, village horticulture assistants, SK Company representative Narasimha Reddy,

Green Traffic representative Ramoji, Nova Company representative Prasad Reddy and farmers participated in the programme in large numbers.