Provided weather conditions remain favourable, India’s apple industry anticipates volumes will be up this year on last season’s record crop of 2.9m tonnes.
Hitin Suri of major Indian fresh produce trader Suri Agro Fresh told Asiafruit late last month apple production in the state of Himachal Pradesh could be up by as much as 40 per cent on last year’s crop.
He adds that while the quality of the crop looks good the area is in need of rainfall. “There is an urgent need for rain. If we get the rain at the desired time it will be a fairly good season, if not the season could be disastrous,” he warned. “Already the monsoon season is late by a week.”
The country’s main production region of Jammu and Kashmir has received adequate rainfall, said Suri, and production there could be up as much as 20 per cent on last year.
Hail has damaged around five per cent of the crop in the region, however. with Red Delicious the worst affected, Suri said.
In 2010 and 2011 apple imports to India increased by more than 30 per cent each year. If the rains do not arrive and production is down in Himachal Pradesh this trend was likely to continue, said Suri - although at a more modest rate of around 10 per cent. If the rains do come, however, he does not see room for growth and imports could decrease.
Dev Bhumi Cold Chain chairman and managing director Sanjay Agarawal told Asiafruit, however, that import volumes would continue to increase on the back of consolidation within the industry. “With margins becoming wafer-thin, many importers are finding themselves in the red at the end of the year,” he said. “A major shake-up is going on in the import business and many traders are losing interest in the business as consolidation is taking place in the hands of importers with their own infrastructure which, due to its addition of value, allows them to play on margins so thin that competitors go belly-up. This will enable the current level of increase to continue and even accelerate. I see the trend growing for many years as the Indian market grows to gargantuan proportions.
Harvesting takes place in Himachal Pradesh from June through to November and peaks in August and September. In Jammu and Kashmir harvesting begins a month later and peaks during September and October.
For more on this story see the July/August edition of Asiafruit.
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