How AP’s Adivasi farmers are feeding city demand for veggies

While their counterparts elsewhere are struggling with pest attacks, adverse climate and low prices, some Adivasi farmers in Andhra Pradesh, realising the earning potential of commercial crops and vegetables, have switched to cultivating these crops and are even tying up with organised agri supply chains.

Chintapalli, 120 kms away from Visakhapatnam, is a case in point. Moving away from the traditional practices and crops that have never given them sufficient incomes, farmers in this hamlet are gradually shifting their focus to exotic vegetables such as iceberg lettuce and broccoli.

Sinnamma (name changed) is among the 150 or so farmers in the region who grow vegetables such as broccoli over an area of about 100 acres. Though growing vegetables is not something new, it’s the slow shift to the exotic and how these farmers are accessing urban markets that is new.

The switch has not been easy, especially considering the hilly terrain in which these farmers work, where water retention is limited.

The farmers have been getting support from the Horticulture Department of Andhra Pradesh, which has tied up with the Ooty-based Lawrencedale Agro Processing (Leaf) for an integrated horticulture development project.

This public-private partnership has been formed with a view to supporting small tribal farmers. LEAF focusses on agri-value chains, working with the farmers in the back-end and buying back the produce for organised retail shops. It has been working with small farmers in Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, procuring vegetables to meet the urban demand.

Palat Vijayaraghavan, Founder and CEO of LEAF, said his firm would help Chintapalli become a key destination for fresh produce. The PPP will provide advisory services and establish post-harvest facilities. “We have about 100 acres under partnership with farmers in the Chintapalli area. Of this, carrot is covered on 75 acres, cabbage, cauliflower and beans on 20 acres and broccoli and iceberg lettuce on five acres. Over a 3-year period, the project aims to cover 500 acres supporting 800 farmers,” he added.

LEAF, which has a network of 30,000 farmers in the southern States, is targeting 100-tonnes-per-day production capacity by the year end from 30-35 tonnes a day at present. It plans to gather information and guide member farmers on what to grow and how much. Chiranjiv Choudhary, Commissioner of Horticulture (Andhra Pradesh), says that little interventions are helping farmers in adding value by grading and cleaning and providing linkages to markets to realise better incomes. “This can be developed as a model that can be replicated elsewhere,” he told BusinessLine , while announcing the partnership recently.

The State grows horticultural crops on about 16 lakh hectares with a total production of 252 lakh tonnes. It registered a GVA (gross value added) of ₹35,000 crore in 2016-17. “We are expecting this to grow to ₹40,300 crore, showing a growth of nearly 20 per cent,” he said.

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