© The Indian Express Pvt Ltd
Tags:
Journalism of Courage
What does a former engineer who lived in Delhi before the pandemic, a garments industrialist from Ludhiana and an Ooty-based seasoned floriculturist have in common? All three are among the growing crop of progressive farmers cultivating blueberries, the blackish-blue superfood that has caught the fancy of Indian agriculturists over the past few years.
Before he moved home to Dharabag village in Himachal Pradesh’s Kullu district in 2020, Vishal Thakur, 34, had been working as an engineer for seven years in Delhi. Instead of sticking to cultivating persimmons, a tomato-like fruit grown widely in China and Japan, he decided to grow “something else”.
“I thought about growing custard apple and dragon fruit, but both were incompatible with Kullu’s climate. Then, I heard about someone growing blueberries in Kullu. In 2022, I started experimenting with 250 saplings of a dozen varieties,” he said over telephone.
Like him, farmers across Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Uttarakhand, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka have been experimenting with blueberries since the past few years. Before blueberries, they had already experimented with exotic high-value crops like avocados, strawberries, kiwis, dragon fruit, persimmons and pecan nuts.
Experts said the shift from traditional farming practices was driven by rising urban demand for exotic produce, better margins than cereals, and lower water and fertilizer requirements compared to paddy.
“Growing blueberries can be remarkably rewarding. They can generate an estimated profit of nearly Rs 64 lakh per acre by year five of plantation,” said a farmer.
Though domestic production is still negligible — just around 2,500-3,000 tonnes — farmers said blueberries are commanding a wholesale price of Rs 1,200-2,000 per kg at present. India currently imports over 20,000 tonnes of blueberries annually in fresh and processed forms, mainly from Chile, Peru and Panama.
Consumed fresh, frozen or in processed forms like jams, juices, liqueurs, baked goods and even pharmaceuticals, a report in Blueberries Consulting said the global production of blueberries is expected to nearly double from the current 1.86 million metric tonnes in five years.
Most farmers The Indian Express spoke to said they had been experimenting with various varieties (including Biloxi, Emerald, Misty, Legacy and Robin Blue) that require different chill hours (cumulative cold hours a plant needs during dormancy to prepare for healthy fruit growth), cultivation spots (growbags, raised beds or greenhouses) and climates.
Thakur said his first harvest was modest — “100-200 grams per plant” — which he sold to online vendors for nearly Rs 30,000.
“By 2024, my yield rose to nearly 2 kg per plant. I sold it for Rs 4 lakh, most of it being profit. I have planted 4,000 saplings on 2.5 acres at another local site. By year four, each plant should yield nearly 5 kg that will sell for nearly Rs 2 crore,” he said.
Since blueberries are grown from saplings, Thakur has set up a government-licensed nursery to import varieties from the US, South Africa, the Netherlands, Ukraine and Italy that he sells for Rs 400-850 each.
Thakur, whose pioneering efforts earned him an award from Kullu’s Dr Y S Parmar University of Horticulture and Forestry, added, “I suggest planting at least three varieties for cross-pollination. Blueberry farming is costly to start (nearly Rs 1,500 per plant with infrastructure), but it can transform high-value farming in the hills.”
More than enthusiasm, growing blueberries requires precision. “Blueberries love acidic conditions. The soil pH should be between 4.5 and 5.5. Since that is rare in India, I use growbags (of soil mix). Blueberries also don’t require traditional fertilizers (like urea or DAP). Instead, nutrition is supplied in grams by mixing it with water.”
Not just individuals, even corporations have jumped on the farming bandwagon.
Neva Plantations, owned by Ludhiana-based Neva Garments, has been growing blueberries at Gopalpur in Himachal Pradesh’s Palampur since 2021. Owner Nirmal Jain said a trip to Canada a decade ago “inspired” him to grow blueberries.
“In 2021, a year after we imported 1,500 saplings from the US and Holland, we planted them under a half-acre polyhouse (a type of greenhouse) at the farm. Our average yield this year was 3 kg per plant. We sold 4,500 kg of blueberries for Rs 1,200-1,600 per kg, netting a profit of around Rs 60 lakh,” he says.
The company, which runs one of India’s few licensed tissue culture laboratories for blueberry propagation, has sold over 50,000 saplings over the past two years.
Marketing head Parvinder Guleria said, “We have set up 12 demonstration plots across the state. Farmers receive technical support, buyback agreements and 50% subsidy on plants (which cost around Rs 300 per sapling after the subsidy).”
Two years ago, they supplied 200 trial plants to Punjab Agricultural University (PAU) in Ludhiana. These plants have yielded fruit this year despite Punjab’s hot weather.
Confirming this, Professor Anirudh Thakur of PAU said, “The plants, purchased from Neva Plantation, yielded around 400 grams of fruit per sapling. The actual results will be visible only in year five.”
Banker-turned-horticulturist Vikram Rawat, a resident of Uttarakhand, was among the first to grow blueberries in Himachal Pradesh’s Mandi. Three years after he planted 3,000 blueberry saplings on five bighas, he harvested 1-2 kg blueberries from each plant and sold them for Rs 1,200-1,400 per kg. “Even if the price drops to Rs 500 per kg, blueberries are far more profitable than traditional crops,” he said.
His passion led him to import 10,000 saplings from France and collaborate with Nainital-based Connect Agro, which has established large-scale blueberry farms in Sitarganj and Pataliya.
Rawat, whose Kalasan Farm Nursery supplies plants across India, said a farmer from south India had purchased 10,000 saplings. “His plants are doing well. Once planted, these saplings yield fruit for at least a decade.”
Seasoned floriculturist Daniel Jai Suraj was bitten by the blueberry bug after a conversation with a doctor friend on superfoods during Covid.
He said, “The demand for blueberries is huge, especially since Covid, and almost all of it was being met by imports earlier. With rising awareness, people are willing to pay for Indian produce.”
In 2022, Suraj planted 30,000 saplings on his plantation in Ooty, Tamil Nadu’s resort town. By year four, he expects each plant to yield 2-3 kg of fruit.
“The soil’s naturally acidic pH here eliminates the need for media like coco peat and coco chips. I sow the saplings directly in the soil. I also use growbags instead of prepared media, which cuts my expenses into nearly half of what others spend on specialised media to maintain pH,” he says.
Nearly 1,000 km from Ooty, nestled in Panchgani near Mahabaleshwar, India’s strawberry capital, Parth Farms took a bold step in 2018 — cultivating 3,500 blueberry saplings on three acres in the open.
“We were the first in the country to try this model. We tested several varieties before identifying the ones best suited to our climatic conditions,” said founder Ambrish Karvat.
Tanvi Karvat of Parth Farms added, “We follow a diverse cultivation model today — from open fields and under shade nets to polyhouses, soil-based farming and growbags — to gain insights into different production systems.”
While nearly 2,600 of these saplings are in active fruit production, the “star” of the farm is Berryland Blue No 1. A crucial component of the venture is propagation. “Our mother stock is imported, but the plants are propagated here in our tissue culture lab,” Karvat explained.
On the major challenges faced by them, she added, “We already had a lot of experience with berry cultivation when we started out with blueberries. In fact, we have started working on growing red and black raspberries.”
