Apple State´s Problem:Too Many Apples
Last year, Himachal Pradesh produced a record 300,000 tons of apples, worth IRs 550 million. The bad news is that they require nine million wooden crates to be distributed .to the far corners of India. To satisfy that demand 65,000 evergreeens, most of them more than a century old, will have to be felled. While the crates cost IRs 270 million, the Himachal Government is supplying them to growers at a subsidised rate of IRs 90 million.
The state Government of Virbhadra Singh, himself an apple man, says it is committed to conserving the 15 per cent of Himachal´s total area that is still under forests. With that in mind, he had boldly decided to impose a complete ban on the felling of trees for making crates. The decision took even envi-ronmentalists by surprise, and brought him in direct confrontation with the state´s powerful apple lobby.
Large orchard owners and the apple trade middlemen claim that only wooden cases will protect their fruit adequately. Some 1,000 sawmill operators and truck owners who lift 25,000 lorry-loads of apples every year also have an interest in the continued use of wood. The heavy crates also enable porters to earn more, and they are easier to handle. In the cities, the wooden crates are bought for cheap and converted into the poor man´s furniture.