By Muhammad Luqman
Decrease in frequency of rain-producing systems and less foggy spells may be a source of concern for common man living in the Central Pakistan province of Punjab, but this unusual winter has proved a bonanza for Jameel Hussain and other strawberry growers.
This time, the sunny weather has been favourable in early fruiting process and bringing down incidence of attacks of all sorts of pests and worms on the crop..
“ We hope that per acre income from the strawberry during the current season is going to be between Rs 200,000 to Rs 300,000 this year. It (strawberry) is giving much better dividend as compared to that of major crops like wheat,” jubilant Jameel Hussain says.
Being a high-value crop that fetches upto Rs 400 (US $ 4) per kilogram in early days of the season, is getting popular among the farmers in the areas close to river Ravi in eastern parts of Pakistan. The area under the crop around Lahore has reached the mark of 700 acres after its introduction in this part of the world about 25 years ago.
Besides the central Pakistan, the crop is getting popular in Sindh, Southern Punjab and even in the north-western province of Khyber Pakhtunkhawa. The runners of the plants are being produced in nurseries established in the districts of Swat and Dir in northern Pakistan. Each runner cost about Rs 2 to a farmer in Punjab and even costlier in Sindh.
Pakistani strawberry , due to sour taste, has not been able to be a part of country’s horticulture exports. Even at home, it is not a table fruit. So very little is consumed directly while most of the strawberries are used in preparing ice-cream, jam, jelly, pickle, cake or milk shake.
American international development organization, USAID had once financed the research for the development of sweet varieties of strawberry in Sindh but it could not succeed.
According to horticulture experts, there is no one variety of strawberry which possesses all the desirable characteristics. Some are superior to others only because of certain characteristics. In general, the differences in tastes between different varieties are not given as much weight as in case of some other fruits. Some of its superior varieties enjoy colour that is very attractive. Its varieties grown in Pakistan are Chandelier, Corona and Stuff.
In the neighbouring India, the strawberry has been adopted as a high value crop. However, the area under crop in India is much less as per international trends. The United States is the world leading producer of strawberries , followed by Turkey and Spain in second and third place respectively. Other top strawberry producing countries in the world include Egypt, Mexico, Russia, Japan, South Korea, Poland, and Germany.
