Maharashtra to adopt South Africa variety of grapes

NASHIK: Faced with the declining acceptability for Indian table grapes in international markets in recent years, the Maharashtra State Grape Growers’ Association has decided to import 16 varieties of table grapes from South Africa. It will be planted in the next season.
The new varieties that includes red, black, white and seedless will be disease-resistant, require less pruning and having minimal pesticide use.“These plants will be developed in less than three months,” association president Ashok Gaikwad said.
Indian varieties take around four months to develop and require lot of pruning. “The pruning takes place in September or October, and is affected by monsoon. We were in search of those varieties that can be developed in less than three months. So, we decided to import table grape varieties from South Africa for the next season,” association’s Nashik division president Vijay Gadakh said.
In India, grapes do not come under patent crop law. Hence, there were difficulties in importing the patent varieties of grapes but the association has already applied to the patent department and grape will be included under Patent Act by March next year.
“We have to give royalty for patented varieties in two categories. Either we have to give one time royalty or royalty for a specific period of two-five years. We had recently met Union agriculture minister Sharad Pawar and held talks. He had suggested one-time royalty for the imported table grape varieties. He had also assured that the government would pay the one-time royalty whatever it may be,” Gaikwad said.
In 2010 grape season, European countries had rejected Indian grapes after chemical residue was found in consignments. But after joint efforts from both government and exporters, European countries, except Germany, accepted some consignments of grapes at lower rates, while the rest of the consignments were diverted to Russia, Dubai and other countries.
Since then, Germany had been denying export of table grapes from India on safety grounds. An Indian delegation including officials from Agriculture and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA), National Research Centre (NRC), Pune and Grape Exporters’ Association (GEAI) had visited Germany and convinced them to start exports again. Germany had started importing Indian grapes in small quantities from the recently concluded grape season.