Farmers are adapting to shifting conditions - but change doesn't always come easily
KINNAUR, India (Thomson Reuters Foundation) — At a small tea shop in Asrang, in the upper reaches of mountainous Himachal Pradesh, three farmers sit discussing their future. They fear that heavy rains that began in May could ruin their crop of sweet peas.
“We never used to have rains at this time of the year until about 10 or 12 years back,” says Balwinder Negi. “(This year) it has been raining since mid-May.”
The farmers, who live at 3,000 metres (10,000 feet) above sea level, have more to contend with than unpredictable rainfall. Despite its altitude, this area is getting warmer, and is no longer covered in snow for most of the year.
As a result of the changed conditions, many farmers are switching from their traditional crop of sweet peas to a quite different one – apples, which were formerly grown only in warmer areas, farther down the mountainside.
According to the India Meteorological Department, there has been a rise in the maximum temperature in the hills, and this, horticulturists say, has pushed apple cultivation into higher areas.
Apples require some warmth to ripen, but also more than six weeks of cold weather. This combination is becoming increasingly rare in the lower-lying valleys of the area.
Asrang lies about 50 km (30 miles) from Reckong Peo, district headquarters of Kinnaur, which is nicknamed the “Apple Kingdom” of India. The beauty of the village, which has the majestic snow-clad Himalayan peaks for a backdrop, stands in sharp contrast to the hardships of the people who live here.
Their daily experience tells them that temperatures are rising: it takes less time to boil water for tea or to cook food than it once did, and during the day it is too warm to wear a scarf or sweater.
But the most noticeable change is that the sweet peas, which they and their forefathers cultivated as their major crop, no longer grow well, often because unseasonal rains destroy the harvest.
S.S. Randhawa of the Himachal Pradesh Council for Science and Technology said that since the 1970s, the area has seen big changes in glacial melt and snowfall patterns.
“There have been disturbing changes in patterns. There is much less snow at the onset and during the winter months, and there is much heavier snow during February and March,” he said.
Randhawa says that this is causing major changes in river water availability, forcing many Himalayan farming communities to shift to non-traditional crops.
Apples are hardy enough to withstand the changeable weather. But increasing temperatures have made their survival in the lower orchards of Kullu Valley very uncertain.
At higher altitudes, however, apples are increasingly being adopted.
“A large number of villagers started planting apples about 12 years ago, when we felt that the temperatures were rising and they saw others take the initiative in planting,” said Negi.
DIFFICULT TRANSITION
The transition from peas to apples has some advantages, as the sale price of apples is much higher. But it hasn’t been easy.
“We have to tend apple saplings like children for 10 to 12 years before they give any income. In contrast, sweet peas would give us immediate returns,” said Kedar Singh, a farmer from Tokto village.
To supply markets in towns and cities, apples must be transported promptly, something the mountainous terrain makes difficult. Landslides, which are not uncommon, can cause delays that make the fruit rot.
An additional challenge is that while pea shrubs grow well enough on slopes, apple trees need flat plots of land.
“In this hilly area, we have had to construct terraces to plant apples trees and this costs us about 250,000 rupees (about $4,300) per bigha of land,” said K.K. Rana, a farmer in Tokto. (A bigha is one third of an acre.)
Terracing requires new skills and is much harder work than cultivating subsistence crops like peas, farmers said.
According to Tejwant Negi, a local politician, some farmers plant a variety of annual crops while waiting for their apple trees to mature, while others depend on goats and sheep. Making the transition is easiest for those who have substantial land and funds, he added.
Although wealthier families began planting apple saplings about a decade ago, and are already enjoying the fruits of their early adaptation, most farmers have only recently taken to cultivating apples, for they had neither the money nor sufficient land to enable a gradual shift.
In India’s capital, Delhi, scarlet-coloured apples labelled as originating from Kinnaur are the most expensive on the market, selling for half as much again as apples from regions such as Kashmir.
But increasingly the apples come not from the lower Kinnaur hills, which lie at around 2,200 metres, but from areas like Asrang and Tokta, above 3,000 metres. Because Asrang is in Kinnaur district, vendors can get away with labelling them as Kinnuar apples, which helps maintain the premium price.
Sujit Chakraborty is an environmental journalist based in New Delhi.
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