PUNE: Farmers in some of Maharashtra’s driest districts boast of more than Rs 1 crore in their bank accounts, thanks to the pomegranate. Twenty years ago, people in Atpadi taluka in Maharashtra’s drought-prone Sangli district, could earn their livelihoods only by migrating to cities.
Then they learnt how to grow pomegranate, an arid area crop that needs little or no water. Today, a significant number are millionaires. Similarly, Aran village in Solapur district has no irrigation and meagre rainfall. Ten years ago, the villagers — most of them labourers — used to protest if the government discontinued a job guarantee scheme. With 1,000 acres under pomegranate, the village is now short of labour.
Similar stories abound in Sangole in Solapur district, Satana and Malegaon in Nashik district and Atpadi, Jat, Kavathemahankal in Sangli district, which produce India’s best quality pomegranate. The plant grows in over one lakh hectares in the state, or 85% of India’s total.
APEDA data shows exports have risen from 7 tonnes in 1999 to more than 35,000 tonnes in 2007-08 as European consumers have developed a taste for the premium Bhagva variety.
The minimum income per acre even without any special care is Rs 2 lakh, that beats profits from sugarcane and grapes. With proper farm management, it can touch Rs 15 lakh per acre. “I know three farmers in Atpadi who have only a 7-8-acre orchard. But due to good farm management practices, they deposit more than Rs 1 crore annually in the bank,” said an official in the state’s agriculture department.
“People are ready to pay Rs 200 per kg for it,” said Prabhakar Chandane, president of the All India Pomegranate Growers Association. Prices overseas are often twice higher, especially for Bhagva.
“Supply from Iran and Spain to Europe has been declining. Israel is trying to increase its area but has geographical restrictions,” said DN Kulkarni, who heads a division to promote sustainable agriculture at Jain Irrigation Systems.
Farmers say the biggest threat is from diseases such as bacterial blight and wilt disease. “I have uprooted the Bhagva variety on four acres of my farm as I could not control the wilt disease despite help from the National Research Centre on Pomegranates,” said a Sangole farmer.
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