Disaster, disease make season tough for apple growers, income declines

It has been a tough season for apple growers. Barring a spurt in the prices over the past one week or so mainly due to the disruption in the arrival of apple from Kashmir, the apple growers stumbled from one challenge after another this season. The list of problems is pretty long — rain and storm at the time of flowering, severe hailing, premature leaf fall, early crash of the market, large-scale blockage of roads due to excessive rainfall and landslide, problems in Market Intervention Scheme under which culled apple is procured, etc.

“The challenges for apple growers are rising and their income is declining. It’s been a largely disappointing year for the growers,” said Lokinder Bisht, president of the Progressive Growers Association.

Long before the disaster washed away or blocked roads in the middle of the harvesting season, a large number of orchards were hit by premature leaf fall, affecting both quality and quantity of the fruit. Expert teams from the University of Horticulture and Forestry, Nauni, visited the affected areas but damage had already been done. Growers are claiming that diseases like alternaria and marssonina have become rampant even though they are following the university’s spray schedule.

“We suffered big losses. The university should look beyond its regular spray schedule as it is proving ineffective to control these diseases,” said Harish Chauhan, convener of the Sanyukt Kisan Manch. “Also, the Horticulture Department should do random checking of pesticides and fertilizers to ensure fake products are not sold to growers,” he added.

The premature leaf fall was the major reason behind the early market crash in August. With leaves gone, the growers were forced to harvest unripe fruit. The delayed opening of collection centres under MIS for procuring culled apple further compounded the problem as some grade C apple was also sent to the market. And now HPMC, the government undertaking, is struggling to lift the culled apple — a large number of apple sacks are stacked at several places along the roads.

Further, the excessive damage to roads resulted in huge losses. “Rains and damaged roads have hit us badly. Fruit is dropping and rotting as farmers are unable to harvest it in time and take it to the market,” said Aman Dhanta, an apple grower from Kotkhai. “The government is making efforts to open roads, but still growers have suffered significant damage,” he said.

Some growers point out discrepancies in the functioning of the fruit mandis. “In the Bhattakuffar and Rohru fruit mandis, the entire lot of the same quality is not being sold at the same rate. Elsewhere, the entire lot fetches the same price. Why are there different rules in different mandis?” asked a grower. “Also, there’s no check on packaging as well. Instead of weighing around 22 kg, most boxes weigh between 24 kg and 27 kg,” he said.