In the good old days, when the concept of weather forecasting was not so popular, farmers in Himachal Pradesh used to rely on the local deity for weather predictions, which used to be seemingly accurate. These days, many farmers have gadgets and apps on their smartphones that enable them to take up sowing and pest control during favourable weather conditions. However, even these sophisticated apps are of little help now because the weather conditions are very erratic.
Since the industrial revolution, which started around 1750, we have been burning fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas, unaware of the fact that the gases emitted from these fossil fuels will one day wrap the earth, trap the sun’s heat, and raise the temperature. It is this global warming that is impacting farmers across the globe, including the apple farmers in Himachal.
Since the 1980s, apple growers in the state have been feeling the impact of erratic weather patterns. The continuous rains during 1982 and 83 were instrumental in providing a congenial atmosphere for the apple scab infection—a serious disease that attacks leaves and fruit. Farmers lost their entire crops because no one had a clue about this disease. After a lot of efforts by the scientific community and the state government, the farmers were able to control this disease. And then, the farmers had to face weather vagaries.
Recently, just last year, a very dry winter in most of the apple-growing regions of Himachal resulted in poor fruit set. Temperate fruits like apples, pears and cherries require certain hours of cold weather, known as chilling hours, which helps them blossom. When the fruit-bearing trees don’t get the requisite chilling hours, it affects productivity. This is exactly what happened in 2023.
In the 1960s and 70s, Kotgarh was known to be the richest village in the country. It was here that the first commercial apple orchard in India was planted in 1916 by Satyanand Stokes, a missionary, educator, Gandhi associate, and ‘father of apple cultivation’ in Himachal. Later Kiari, a beautiful village in the Kotkhai tehsil of Shimla district, earned the distinction. These days, Maraug, a village in the Chopal region of Shimla district, is known as the richest village. However, the apple growers of Kotgarh, Kiari and other such regions where apple orchards have become old and senile, are earning only a fraction of the amount which they used to earn in their heydays. Farmers feel that the productivity in Himachal is reducing by the year because the weather gods are not favourable to them. This may be true to some extent but there are other factors also.
Most of the apple orchards in Himachal have outlived their economic life and need urgent replacement. The farmers are aware of these problems but they are unable to replace the old apple orchards because to come up with a new orchard, especially on clonal rootstock, is capital intensive. A few farmers who have deep pockets are setting up apple orchards on clonal rootstock. Apple orchards based on clonal rootstock in Europe, New Zealand, Chile and the USA are known to yield 40-50 tons per hectare whereas apple orchards in Himachal, which are raised on seedlings, produce only 6-7 tons per hectare.
The farmers and the government of the day have to make serious efforts to save the apple industry of Himachal Pradesh, which generates a lot of employment and fetches Rs 6,000 crore annually. It is not that the previous governments did not do anything to address this issue but it seems that more efforts are required.
A scheme was formulated to revamp the horticulture sector when Vidya Stokes was the horticulture minister. To boost the horticulture sector, the state government, under the leadership of Virbhadra Singh, applied for a loan of Rs 1,134 crore from the World Bank. The specific reasons for taking this loan were—to replace the existing old and senile orchards, develop state-of-the-art fruit nurseries in the state so that farmers do not have to depend on expensive imported fruit trees and provide water and irrigation facilities to farmers falling under this project. Improve the post-harvest needs of the farmers by setting up CA stores, enhance the capacity of existing CA stores, set up an Apple Juice Concentrate plant at Prala so as to save transportation costs, set up a hydro cooling unit at Jarol-Tikkar for cherries and other perishable fruits, set up centres of excellence at Shilaroo and Palampur, improve the APEDA sponsored grading and packaging units at Nadaun and Ghumarwin, improve the fruit auctioning system in the state, provide funds to Dr Y S Parmar Horticulture University for research on issues related to horticulture.
Unfortunately, the World Bank-funded Horticulture Development Project could not meet the expectations of the farmers. The apple growers of the state are now banking on the hope that the present government will improve their lot.
Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu and horticulture minister Jagat Singh Negi should come forward to save the ailing apple industry. Otherwise, poverty and displacement are looming large on the horizon.
(Prakash Thakur is a processive orchardist and former vice-chairman of HP Horticultural Produce Marketing & Processing Corporation—a Himachal government PSU)
