Grapes of sorrow

STATE UPDATE: ANDHRA PRADESH

Srinivas Reddy, a small grape grower who gave up his pursuit of higher studies to assist in his family's grape cultivation business, is not exactly high on his grape growing prospects. Indeed, he says he has been advising prospective grape growers to think twice before venturing into the field. Grape growers, he thinks, could soon be exiting grape cultivation.

Reddy cites three reasons for the dark clouds that hover over Andhra Pradesh's grape growers: the fear of drought; the possibility of pest attacks arising from unseasonal rains and dumping by Maharashtra growers in Andhra Pradesh. What is more, yields have tumbled by 60-70 per cent and scores of grape farmers are not in a position to realise good prices in the domestic market.

Thanks to Maharashtra's grape growers dumping non-exportable grapes, farm gate prices for grapes in Andhra Pradesh nosedived to around Rs 12 per kg from Rs 20 per kg in the previous season.

"There is a steep fall in fruit quantity as well as quality," Srinivas Reddy laments. Drought has stalked the state for the last few years. Grape output is expected to have fallen by over 50 per cent in the fiscal year ending in March, 2003, from over 1.2 lakh tonne in the year before.

Andhra Pradesh is the country's second largest grape producing state (Maharashtra is the largest). Andhra has around 10,000 acres under grapes, almost a tenth of Maharashtra's over one lakh acres. But in Maharashtra, grapes are grown on small 2-3 acre holdings "" a small grape farmer in Andhra Pradesh owns 10 acres on an average. When growing conditions are favourable, Andhra's farmers garner a yield of 15 tonne an acre, far more than Maharashtra's 8-10 tonne.

But conditions have been anything but favourable for Andhra's grape growers. Says C Kanaka Reddy, convenor of the Andhra Pradesh Grape Growers Association: "There have been unseasonal rains in January continuously over the last few years. The rains spawned a wide pest attack, especially attacks by a sucking pest, Thrips. It is a sad sight to see farmers struggling to repay loans raised at 12 per cent. Andhra Pradesh's grape growers invest a minimum of Rs 1.5 lakh per acre and this has begun to hurt them.

"If the same conditions persist, there will be no new grape cultivation in the state." Kanaka Reddy, himself a large grape farmer, says he has given up the idea of constructing a cold storage because of the weather factor and dumping from Maharashtra.

But can't grape growers export their produce? Grape prices overseas are double grape prices in the domestic market. Last year, Andhra Pradesh exported around 2,500 tonne of grapes, mostly to Europe. "This year so far, 1,000 tonne have been shipped. We will be lucky if we can export another 500 tonne by month end," Kanaka Reddy says gloomily. Andhra Pradesh began grape exports in 1998 with 450 tonne.

The snag here is pest attacks. If growers use the pesticides they think are effective (monoprotophos, lanet, dunet and regent), importers in the European Union will reject consignments. If they do not use the pesticides, their crops wither.

Is the state government doing anything about growers' problems? Srinivas Reddy says that government help, if any, is yet to percolate to small grape growers.

This is also true of government assistance in setting up shaded nets and subsidies for new grape farms, he adds. G V K Naidu, managing director of Sam Agritech, which operates a cold storage plant, notes that last year the department of horticulture, the National Horticulture Board (NHB) and the Agriculture and Processed Food Export Development Authority (Apeda), with the involvement of cold storage plants, farmers and exporters, launched a co-ordinated approach to tackle pest attacks.

A campaign devised by the National Research Centre for Grapes at Pune "" on farming methods using approved chemicals for eliminating pests and the fallout of unseasonal rains "" was yielding results and had to be scaled up to cover more farmers in the state, he notes.

The state's hard-hit grape farmers have a ray of hope in the exclusive agricultural export zone (AEZ) set up last year to cover over 3,000 grape farmers in Rangareddy, Medak and Mahboobnagar districts. This is suited for export-oriented production of grapes and mangoes.

It is expected to offer benefits like the introduction of the latest technology, jobs for workers involved in pre-harvest and post harvest activities, besides taking steps to increase productivity and get better prices. Farmers are also being assured that modern nurseries will be established and 100 per cent drip irrigation facilities provided to them.

Right now, however, Andhra's grape growers are looking up to the sky and praying that the rain god won't let them down again.