Ripe for the picking 

Eight years ago, Kunaal Chauhan quit a well-paying job at Dell in Chandigarh and decided to join the family business. The 29-year-old third-generation farmer from Himachal Pradesh had a vision: He wanted to modernise their highly labour-intensive apple farming business in the mountain state and make it more profitable. “The terrain and geography of Himachal hasn’t allowed much technology to be adapted here, but on our own we are trying to use machines and technology used abroad to reduce the manual handling of the fruit which will in turn increase productivity,”says Chauhan, general secretary and founding member of the Progressive Growers Association (PGA), a 135-member cooperative society of apple growers in Shimla.

It’s been a little over a century since apples were introduced in Himachal Pradesh. But for the longest time cultivation remained heavily dependent on manual labour and modernisation was slow, even though the industry has grown into the backbone of the state’s agricultural economy. Every year, as the snow melts and spring rolls around, orchards in Himachal Pradesh burst to life with apples in a range of colours from all the way from green to luscious red. Drive through the districts of Shimla, Kinnaur, or Kullu and you’ll see acres of orchards with workers picking apples or carting them in big triangular baskets attached to their backs.

But in recent years, Chauhan and many modern apple farmers like him have been trying to change the face of apple cultivation in Himachal Pradesh altogether. They have imported modern production technology from different parts of the globe and automation has penetrated every stage of the apple cultivation process, from harvesting to sorting and packaging.

Apple farms nestled in the shadow of snow-clad peaks are no longer old-fashioned businesses but boast high-tech equipment and systems such as automatic sprinklers, weeding and irrigation machines, and spindle bush systems. Orchards also have controlled-atmosphere cold-storage systems so that the fruit can stay fresh for a year as well as grading machines with electronic eyes which can spot blemishes and help sort out premium apples. Scientific methods have paid off. Older varieties of trees only bore fruit after around 25 years but modern grafting technology has cut that down to just eight years. “Bringing in new technology has impacted both quality and quantity,” says Chauhan.

Himachal Pradesh is the second-largest apple producer in India after Kashmir with an average annual production of 780,000 tonnes in 2015-16 and an apple industry pegged at Rs 3,500 crore. The improvement in quality has helped increase the prices of the state’s apples, which support over 170,000 families. Chauhan says he used to get Rs 1,000 fora box of 25 kg when he began but today he gets Rs 3,700. Apples account for about 84%of the state’s total fruit production and the area under apple cultivation has increased from just 400 hectares in 1950-51 to 1,10,679 hectares, or 49% of total area under fruit production.

But the picture isn’t entirely rosy. The apple business faces a host of challenges,the biggest being imports from the U.S. and China. Unplanned urbanisation is another problem. Many traditional fertile apple fields have been converted into residential areas to meet the demands of a growing population and urbanisation.

Himachal Pradesh Marketing and Processing Corporation (HPMC) is gearing up to deal with the challenges. A World Bank-funded horticulture development project with an outlay of Rs 1,115 crore is set to be implemented in the state. The seven-year project will focus on providing new technologies to increase productivity. “The World Bank project is focussed on transforming the entire industry from processing to marketing. It includes marketable stock improvement, importing better varieties, and providing drip irrigation systems, so that the plants bear a lot more and better,” says Prakash Thakur, vice chairman, HPMC.

These efforts are expected to have a positive impact on each member of the production chain, from apple growers to consumers. At the moment, apple growers depend on two modes of selling: One is on a consignment basis in which they send their produce to a commissioning agent, who auctions it at the mandi. The rate is decided at the auction and the grower gets the amount. The other is to give the produce directly to private players like Dev Bhumi, who set a price for different grades of apples and take charge of grading and packing.Some 95% of the apples in Himachal Pradesh are sold on a consignment basis.

A kilogram of apples costs around Rs 45 at the start of this journey; by the time it reaches the city, the cost goes up to around Rs 100 because of the cost of labour, packaging, transportation, commissions of merchants and middlemen, and state taxes. “On average, apple growers have a 70%profit margin on every box of apples sold,” says Chauhan. “We end up making more money in the latter model.”

India might be the world’s third-largest producer of apples, but the fruit’s journey to the country was almost accidental. The story goes that a British army officer introduced a variety of English apples to the Kullu Valley in 1870, but they were too sour for Indian taste. In 1915, Samuel Stokes, an American missionary in India, heard about a new strain of apples patented by a nursery in Louisiana called Red Delicious. He bought a few saplings and planted them at his orchard in Thanedar village in Himachal Pradesh and the first trees bore fruit in 1926.

Initially, local farmers weren’t convinced about switching from wheat to apples, but eventually came around,following the popularity of the sweeter variety of apples.More than 100 years later, apples are big business in Himachal Pradesh. Markets are overflowing with fruit and the apples are also used to make other products such as jams,juices, and chutneys. Some say demonetisation has taken a toll on apple vendors. Is that true,I ask Bhura Hassan. For 25 years, he has sold apples from a cart on Shimla’s Mall Road. “It seems like people have stopped buying fruits,”he says frankly. “We have four months of business, but there’s a bit of a crunch this season.Hotels are vacant and so are the streets. Who will come to us?”

(The article was originally published in the December 2017 issue of the magazine.)