Unseasonal rains turn prospects sour for grape growers

Madan Shinde, a farmer in Nashik, has decided to let bygones be bygones. Distressed at the unseasonal rains that have been lashing the area for the last three days and decimated several acres of grape vines in the region, Shinde has decided to focus on the positives.

One of the 1,500 farmers who have bandied under the Sahyadri Farmer Producer Co-operative in Nashik, Shinde has been nursing severe grudges against the rain gods. The Co-operative has around 6,000 hectares of farm land under its jurisdiction, and most of the farmers are cultivating grapes at this time of the year.

“I am very angry and frustrated. There is mass scale destruction of our grape vines,” said Shinde.

“Rains in February is unheard of, and definitely not such a deluge. We have been sitting and wringing our hands for the past three days, but now since the sun has come out, we have decided to salvage whatever we can,” he said.

Stating that at this time of the year, the ‘A grade’ crop would normally be exported to Europe, Gulf and other Asian countries, Shinde said:

“This is the peak period, when every day we would have packed around 15 containers. It has now come down to zero.”

Around 10-15 per cent of Maharashtra’s grape crop is exported. Till date, Shinde said only 250-300 containers have been exported, when normally it is around 900-1,000 containers.

Farmers in Satana, Nampur, Bhuyane in the neighbouring districts have assessed the damage and informed the Co-operative. Like Shinde, most of the farmers in the Co-operative have been exporting grapes.

“From ₹80 a kg for fresh grapes meant for exports, we will now try and sift through the damaged crop and sell what we can for ₹10-15, to the fruit processing industry,” said Shinde.

He said that since rains had lashed Nashik, Dindori, Sinnar, Malegaon and Pholpatta in Maharashtra, some of the damaged crop would also be processed as dried raisins and sold in the domestic market. Pratap Gaikwad, another grape farmer in Satana, a municipal council in Nashik district, said that his family has been cultivating grapes for over 20 years, but had never seen such freak weather.

“We have had weird weather in several districts of the grape growing region since last year,” Gaikwad told BusinessLine over the phone. “It has been sunny on some days, cloudy the next and sometimes, bitterly cold waves pass through the region. We have learnt to live with it,” he said.

Stating that the area had severe water shortage some years ago, especially Deola, Baglan, Kalwan and Malegaon in Nashik, Gaikwad said, “From grape crops, we shifted to growing pomegranate, and then moved back, since grapes got us more money. Towards the end of last year, there was a hailstorm and huge pieces of ice crushed our vines. Now, these rains have played havoc,” said Gaikwad.

Hail storms and unseasonal rains have all but put paid to the regular grape exports from this wine producing area in Maharashtra.

In the 2013-14 season, from April 2013 to October 2014, Maharashtra exported 1,56,872.29 tonnes of grapes valued at ₹1,570.08 crore ($263.35 million), data from the Apeda (Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority) website showed.

Comparatively, in the 2014-15 grape season till date, the State exported just 37,181.43 tonnes of fresh grapes, valued at ₹393.17 crore ($65.21 million).

As Shinde pointed out, two more months were left for the grape season. “Many farmers are in a fix as to how to tabulate the loss. Every month, there is some issue, and the government does not seem interested in finding a solution to our problems,” he said.

He said that government officials had assessed that around 17,000 hectares was damaged due to the rains, and caused a loss of around ₹1,000 crore. A clearer picture would be available at the end of the month.

As Gaikwad said, given the unseemly weather, grape harvesting in Nashik had run into some problem or the other since October last.

“On October 15, a decision was taken to undertake sulphur dusting to get rid of the coating on grapes. The produce has not been up to the mark as a consequence and prices have slumped,” he said.

From the regular ₹55-85/kg, prices have dipped alarmingly. Green grape variety Thomson costs ₹25-30, while Sharad Seedless costs ₹30-40. Black variety Jumbo grapes cost ₹60-70, while Sonaka costs ₹30-40, said an official at the Maharashtra Rajya Draksha Bagaitdar Sangh.