Soaring temperatures to cut down fruit, vegetable production by 30%

Early onset of summer has led to a massive flower and fruit drop according to mango farmers

With the temperatures on the rise and the subsequent crop decay, the production of fruits and vegetables in the country is expected to fall up to 30 per cent this season, as per a report in The Economic Times.

The early unexpected onset of summer has led to a massive flower and fruit drop according to mango farmers in the country. The change in climatic pattern is also expected to come down heavily on the production of fruits like watermelons, bananas, lychee, citrus and cashew crops, experts said. The experts further added that the vegetables like cabbage, cauliflowers, leafy vegetables and tomatoes will be of lower nutritional content and smaller size.

"We estimate that there will be a loss of 10 per cent to 30 per cent for different fruit and vegetable crops in different regions due to the sudden increase in temperatures," SK Singh, director of the Indian Institute of Horticulture Research (IIHR) in Bengaluru told the publication.

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"The fruit crops that are immediately affected are mangoes, lychee, citrus crops like kinnow and oranges, bananas and avocados," he added.

Meanwhile, farmers say that the production of high-value Alphonso mangoes in Maharashtra is most likely to be hit by about 40 per cent.

High temperatures and humidity are being tagged as the reasons for the increased pest and fungus infestation. The temperatures usually start to soar around the time of the Holi festival. But this time, the temperatures went up almost immediately following the winter. It is learnt that last month was the hottest February recorded in the country with 29.5 degrees Celsius as the average maximum temperature.

"The minimum night temperature is higher than usual and the difference between the day and night temperature has narrowed down with the result that there is a lesser opportunity for crops to recover from heat stress (from high day temperature) in the night time," Praveen Pankajakshan, head of AI Lab at Cropin, a startup providing agricultural intelligence, told ET.

"Farmers might bring their produce to the market earlier than anticipated, resulting in excess during some periods and shortage during harvesting,” he added.

Alarmingly, the IMD has also predicted an "enhanced probability of occurrence of a heat wave" between March and May in central and northwest India.