The Uttarakhand Government has always been looking for new ideas to enhance tourism in the state which has great scope for various kinds of tourism like religious, spiritual, adventure and wellness tourism. There is another emerging sphere of tourism which is fruit tourism.
A mountain region becomes more attractive for tourists when they can enjoy fresh fruits plucked from trees as this is an activity that they cannot indulge in in big cities. A vacation in the mountains becomes so much more exciting if one can find abundant, luscious fruit to eat and take home. At times, one can actually pluck these fruits from trees on the roads.
These days, it is apple ripening time in Uttarakhand. Done with the litchi season, we are now in the apple season. Linking litchi and apple orchards in the mountain state to tourism can go a long way in boosting the fruit sales as well as tourism. Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand’s neigbour, is better known as apple country but the apple belt of the Devbhumi of Uttarakhand is also a picturesque region and deserves to be known better. The state government, over the last few years, has been making consistent efforts to link the apple belt with tourism and “Apple Day” is celebrated during the ripening season every year to draw the attention of visitors from various parts of the country and abroad. It is also a happy coincidence that the apple season in Uttarakhand overlaps with the Yatra season when the various Yatra routes see a constant arrival and departure of pilgrims at and from the shrines of Badrinath, Kedarnath, Yamunotri, Gangotri and Hemkund Sahib.
The sight of apples ripening on the trees and also the fruit available in the markets along the routes has established a link in the minds of the visitors between Uttarakhand and apples. Horticulture can play an important part in promotingtourism.The Horticulture Department at Chaubatia in Kumaon came up with the slogan "Apple is the Food of the Gods", keeping in mind the image of the Devbhoomi. Chaubatia, ten kilometres from Almora, is so called because it is the common meeting point of four paths. Chaubatia has beautiful gardens and apple orchards with a commanding view of the Himalayas.
The Government Garden and the Fruit Research Centre at Chaubatia are places of attraction for tourists. Apples are grown in Dhanaulti, Kanatal and Chamba in the Tehri district and this "fruit belt" needs more attention. This fruit belt, named "Chamba-Mussoorie Fruit belt" was created in the 1970s when forest land was leased out by the government for apple orchards. Harshil and Nowgaon in Uttarkashi have good apple crops.
Apples in the state are ripening these days. The varieties available are "Early Sunberry", "Golden Delicious ", "Red Delicious" and "Royal Delicious". Orchard owners feel that the government needs to give a fresh look to its policies on apple cultivation in order to fully utilise the space and climate of the state. Apples in the state were introduced in the pre-Independence era and the popular variety was the Red Delicious. Harshil apples in Uttarakashi introduced by Pahadi Wilson are in great demand.
They are better known as Wilson apples. Wilson is remembered for many things one of them being the large, juicy, red apples he introduced to this region. Known as "Wilson Apples", these are sold by locals to travellers and pilgrims on their way to Gangotri shrine. The state horticulture department, some years ago, introduced American hybrid varieties and new techniques. These imported varieties of apple are not only rich in taste, but also virus and disease-resistant.
These include the Star King and Top Red grown at an altitude of 6,500 feet and the Red Chief, Organ Spur, Scarlet Gala, Red Fuji and Vale Spur suitable for cultivation at 5,500-6,000 feet.These varieties can bear six to seven kilos of fruit in a short span of time and the production increases manifold. Peaches, plums, pears, apricots and cherries grow abundantly in Ramgarh in Kumaon.
These are fully ripe by around end of May to mid June. Ramgarh is a town set up by the British and has two parts –Talla Ramgarh and Malla Ramgarh -with lovely architecture. It was in Ramgarh that Rabindranath Tagore began writing his great work ‘Gitanjali’. It would be apt to mention here a successful cooperative initiative called The Apple Project launched by Shri Jagdamba Samiti (SJS), an NGO led by LP Semwal.
SJS launched this project in Uttarakhand in 2007 and the brand “Mountain Love” (apple juice) in 2015 with the realisation that small farmers in a market-oriented “agribusiness get further marginalised mainly due to the dominance of mandis, a chain of well-organised intermediaries who control the entire process from credit supply for farm inputs, transportation and marketing of produce.
The apple project hence strives to create a model of business-driven, decentralised independent and small-scale production with coordinated arrangements for processing and marketing by providing technical, managerial and investment support to enable farmers collectively to move up the value chain.
With better planning and policy making on the part of the government and coordination between the growers and the government, there is no reason why the Devbhoomi can not become as famous for its apples and other luscious fruits as it is for its Gods.
