Patience bears fruit for Uttaranchal orchards

Patience has finally borne fruit or, perhaps more specifically, apples, for the farmers of Uttaranchal. After nearly three decades of waitin...

Patience has finally borne fruit or, perhaps more specifically, apples, for the farmers of Uttaranchal. After nearly three decades of waiting, the state expects to push up its production by 25-30 per cent this year, even as it tries to find a foothold in a market dominated by Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh.

8216;8216;We will reap a very good crop after years,8217;8217; crows Vikram Singh of Dutkandidhar, in the apple belt in the Ramgarh area of Kumaon. 8216;8216;Apple-growers had almost lost hope that such a day would come.8217;8217;

It was two decades ago, apple trees in the Uttarkashi, Chamoli and Chakrata areas of Dehra Dun district in the Garhwal region and Nainital, Pithoragarh, Almora and Champavat areas of Kumaon first began to be affected by disease.

Productivity was the first casualty; it was further affected by the warming of the climate and the disappearance of winter rains. So much so that farmers began cutting down their apple trees and switched to other fruits. The annual production of the state has been officially stuck at 60,000 metric tonnes for several years now.

This year, though, it seems that the worst is finally behind the state8217;s apple-growers. 8216;8216;We are in for a bumper crop after nearly three decades,8217;8217; acknowledges state minister for horticulture Govind Singh Kunjwal.

Remarkably, the sentiment is echoed all over the state, from Munisiyari in Pitthoragarh on the China border in the east to the Chakrata region near Himachal Pradesh in the west. Scientists have their own explanation for the phenomenon. 8216;8216;Last winter, for the first time in many years, we got some off-season rains and snowfall in the apple belts. That fulfilled the chilling requirement, which had been falling short consistently,8217;8217; says Anil Joshi of the Himalayan Environmental Studies and Conservation Organisation, a voluntary body.

Kunjwal claims some of the credit for his own department which, he says, has supplied technical inputs and improved pesticides to apple-growers since the state of Uttaranchal came into being more than three years ago.

Story continues below this ad

According to R C Srivastava, deputy director, Horticulture, Uttarkashi will be the most bountiful in apple production this year. Some 25,000 cartons 8212; 500,000 kg 8212; of graded apples have been booked in this one district.

Some companies, too, have lined up to reap the benefits of the expected bumper apple crop. Mother Dairy and U-Agro-Coop are only two companies that have sealed deals with apple-growers to purchase the produce.

The state government plans to channelise the remaining fruit to various self-help women8217;s groups for conversion into jam, jellies and juices.