Stone fruit growers in a fix over labour shortage

Strap: Plum crop will be ready for marketing in mid-June

Dipender Manta

Tribune News Service

Mandi, June 5

In the wake of a mass exodus of migrant labourers amid the lockdown, stone fruit growers from Kullu district are worried about how to fetch their crop from fields in their absence and send it to the market in time. The plum crop will be ready for harvesting by mid-June.

Kullu district is known for apple and stone fruit cultivation, where large tracts of land are covered under these crops. Among all fruits, apples are widely grown. The area under apple cultivation is 18,524 hectare and the annual fruit production is between 80,000 and 90,000 metric tonne. This represents about 9,000 truckloads of apples every year.

Other varieties of fruits grown in Kullu are plum, peach, apricot, pomegranate and kiwi as well as nuts, especially almonds. These fruit plantations cover 3,065 hectare and the annual production is approximately 20,000 metric tonne.

Talking to The Tribune, stone fruit growers said due to the Covid-19 crisis, they were facing labour shortage and there was no one to do manual works in orchards. Apart from this, the buyers of the plum crop, mostly from Uttar Pradesh, Delhi and Chandigarh, had still not arrived in the district.

Dipak Kumar, a stone fruit grower, said, “The plum crop will be ready for marketing within one week and we are worried about its fetching from fields in the absence of adequate manpower.”

Rajiv Kimta, another fruit grower, said, “The labour shortage is a major concern among orchardists in Kullu district, where the fruit season will begin from mid-June onwards. We are worried about the marketing of fruits crops as well as to harvest them in time.”

“The state government should ensure better marketing facility to the fruit growers, who are suffering a lot because of the current situation. Vegetable growers from the district have already lost their livelihood due to poor marketing facility,” he said.