Apple Supply Chain in India—From The Himalayan Mountains to The Consumer | Vom Fuße des Himalaya – Wertschöpfungskette Äpfel in Indien

With nearly 2.3 mil t apple cultivation on 314,000 ha, India ranks as the 5th largest apple producer worldwide, but amounts to only 2.4% of India’s overall fruit production. Apple cultivation is traditionally concentrated in the provinces Jammu and Kaschmir (ca. 70%), Himachal Pradesh (ca. 20%), Uttarakhand (ca. 10%) und Arunachal Pradesh in the foothills (1000 to 3500 m) of the Himalayan mountains with 800–1600 CH provides sufficient chilling. Despite low yields of an averaged 10 t/ha, apple of the ‘Red Delicious’ group is an economic crop—relative to vegetables—for smallholder farmers. The fruits are transported 4 to 8 days per truck sometimes on poor roads and without cooling to their destination, whereas imported fruit arriving at a port benefit from shorter inland transport and cool chain. Lack of harvest techniques, storage facilities, refrigerated transport and protective packaging results in considerable losses along the domestic apple supply chain.The Indian apple market with an estimated apple consumption of ca. 3.1 mil t/year or ca. 2 kg/head per year is supplied ca. 90% (2–3 mil t) by inland production and by ca. 10% by apple imports. Imports dropped from 370,000 t in 2016/7 (worth US $ 200,000) to 250,000 t in 2017/8 and 270,000 t in 2018/19 after an import ban for apples from China due alleged sanitary contamination from May 2017 and increase in import duty on US fruit from 50 to 75%. International fruit suppliers are the US, (China), New Zealand, Chile and Italy with apple cvs ‘Fuji’, ‘Red Delicious’, ‘Gala’, ‘Granny Smith’, etc. with an overall market potential of ca. 200 mil US $. India exports mangos, table grapes and pomegranates, as well as ca. 18,000 t apples (worth 9 mil US $) to neighbouring Bangladesh and Nepal.The Indian market and consumer prefers large, red (or green) essentially blemish-free apples, which fetch high prices from 28–35 Rs/kg (0.34–0.43 €/kg) for domestic to 56–145 Rs/kg (0.69–1.77 €/kg; Jan 2019) for imported fruit, the latter with 200 mil euros attractive for the international apple trade. (Un-)loading, grading, transport and fruit stalls are dominated by manual labour and offer unskilled people social security and income.