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Bijapur grapes regain export glory

Juicy deals
Last Updated 14 February 2012, 18:35 IST

­Overseas customers have evinced interest in the grapes grown in Bijapur once again. Export of grapes from the district has resumed after long gap of five years.

Former legislator and DCC Bank president Shivanand Patil has exported six tonnes of ‘Sharad,’ a seedless variety, this year.

More than 3,500 farmers grow the fruit on 7,200 hectares in the district. Export quality variety used to be grown in 1,500 hectares.

But several farmers stopped growing the export quality for lack of knowledge on post-harvest technology, processing, problems in transporting the produce and the risk of rejection, say officials of the Horticulture department.

Consequently, exports came to a halt five years ago.

Quality matters

Overseas customers have their own standards to purchase the produce. While Indian consumers expect sweet grapes, it is not so for the Western counterparts.

They prefer rotund-shaped sour grapes, with a diameter of 22 to 24 mm having a sugar content of less than 18 per cent. It is also their condition that pesticides should not have been sprayed on the produce, Patil said.

Of the 12-acre farm, Patil has grown export variety on only three acres.

“I ensured that each bunch weighed only a kilo and restricted the yield at 10-15 kg a creeper. This way I was able to maintain the quality and size of grapes,” he said.

Farmers in the neighbouring Maharashtra have organised themselves under the name Maha Grapes and export the produce. But there are no such organisations in Karnataka and growers are dependent on agents.

Patil said agents purchase grapes from growers at Rs 60-Rs 80 a kilo and export it for Rs 250 or more per kilo. Multinational companies, which have entered into retailing,  sell the produce under their brand name.

He felt that Horticulture University has not been of any use for grape, pomegranate and lemon growers.

The earlier governments granted 100 per cent subsidy for drip irrigation and it had been reduced to 50 per cent during the BJP rule.

Grape growers should be entitled to all benefits enjoyed by coffee planters, he said.

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(Published 14 February 2012, 18:34 IST)

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