Under The Mango Tree is a social enterprise that has had been formed around a beautiful and important idea - Beekeeping to promote agricultural productivity. The organisation promotes beekeeping to increase agricultural productivity and improve livelihoods of marginal farmers in India.
Under The Mango Tree is India’s first national brand of organic, fairly traded, single-origin honey. UTMT trains farmers in the art of beekeeping and the honey collected is bottled and sold by UTMT. The all-natural honey collected directly from beekeepers retains its unique flavours, flavours that are linked to either a single flora source (Litchi, Eucalyptus, Sweet Clover) or a specific region (Desert Bloom, Wild Forest).
The fascinating thing about the UTMT enterprise is the number of issues being tackled by such a simple idea. Marginal farmers, comprising 75% of India’s population, face challenges such as declining incomes and lack of market access for their goods. Additionally, bees, which are key to the global food system, continue to die, and this leaves farmers in further danger of reduction in their agricultural yields. With one simple idea, UTMT is providing farmers with a sustainable and long-term market that empowers the farmers not only with an additional source of income, but as a by-product of their beekeeping, increased agricultural yield. Farmers receive a fair price for their honey and urban consumers are able to directly contribute to the improvement of the lives of marginal farmers in India.
While we’ve been seeing Under The Mango Tree honey jars at various nice shops and even tried a few of their honeys, we had little idea about all that was behind these delicious honeys. We recently had the pleasure of visiting Under The Mango Tree and were very moved by their passion and the wider impact of the idea. We love what they’re doing and love the fact that it also results in some delicious, distinct honeys. We were lucky enough to do a side by side tasting of a variety of their honeys and it was remarkable how different the colours and flavours of each honey were. While our current favourite is the Desert Bloom Honey, we can’t wait to get through our jar and move on to the next variety.
Under The Mango Tree’s range of delicious single-origin honeys will now be available at the Eatelish shop in 200gms and 500gms bottles. www.eatopia.in/shop