Sangli farmer grows apples in drought-prone jath, draws stream of visitors

Antral, Sangli: In a region where summer temperatures touch 43°C and rain visits just 30 days a year, Kakasaheb Sawant is harvesting apples.

“Ever since people heard apples are growing on my farm, I’ve had a stream of visitors,” says the 44-year-old from Antral village in Jath taluka, Maharashtra. He stands beside rows of bushes laden with fruit locals call safarchand. Jath, bordering Karnataka, gets only 560 mm of rainfall annually and has sandy-loamy soil.

“People laughed when I said I’d grow apples here,” Sawant recalls. A former automobile mechanic, Sawant started a fruit and forest tree nursery in 2010. In early 2020, he planted 150 saplings of HRMN-99, an all-terrain apple variety developed by Himachal Pradesh farmer Hariman Sharma for warm, low-altitude regions. Four years on, the gamble has paid off.

His orchard now draws farmers and curious visitors who see the crop as proof that apple farming can move beyond hill states.