Malik Fiaz, now 70, has been involved in lychee farming in the Panjkatha area of Khanpur in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Haripur district for decades. It started with his father, and now his children and grandchildren are also working as pre-harvest fruit contractors.

But with the onset of unusual climatic events, particularly over the last few years, there has been a steady decline in produce and food size, resulting in shrinking profits. “Not too long ago, the Khanpuri lychee used to fetch a handsome amount of foreign exchange every season, with high demand in the Gulf states,” Fiaz tells Eos. “But now, we often worry about breaking even,” he adds.

Khanpur’s Panjkatha [Five Watercourses] is a conglomeration of over a dozen small and large countryside localities. The majority of its dwellers resettled there following displacement by the Khanpur Dam project in the 1970s. With fertile soil and abundant water, the area is known as the fruit basket of the district, with lychee among its most sought-after produce.

A recent survey, conducted by Dr Waseem Ahmed, an adjunct professor in the horticulture department at the University of Haripur (UoH), found that around 5,000 farmers across Haripur were growing lychee over roughly 1,500 hectares of land. The fruit is harvested between June and July, with an estimated yield of 15,000-20,000 metric tonnes, and an appraised yearly worth of Rs1.5-2 billion (USD 10-15 million), says Dr Ahmed.

Until a few years ago, lychee farmers in KP’s Haripur district were earning Pakistan hefty foreign exchange from export of their much sought-after fruit. But climate change and environmental deterioration have meant they are now scrambling to meet even domestic demand

It also provides employment opportunities to hundreds of unskilled and skilled workers, with Dr Ahmed telling Eos that the flowering to ripening duration of the fruit lasts between 120-150 days, with processes such as pruning, fertilisation, pest/disease management and irrigation involving 150-200 people per hectare.

ORIGINS OF LYCHEE

The lychee is a native to Southeast Asia and has been a favourite fruit of the Cantonese since ancient times, according to the Encyclopaedia Britannica. China is the main producer of lychees, followed by India, with production also occurring in other countries in Southeast Asia.

According to the records of the provincial agriculture department, the Nursery Fruit Farm, locally known as Sarkari Bagh and spread over 128 kanals (one kanal is approximately 500 sq metres), was established during British rule in 1913. It included a lychee farm of around 180 trees, spread over 22 kanals.

Octogenarian Haider Khan, a retired teacher, relying on oral history, says his grandfather told him that lychee was first cultivated in Haripur during the early days of Sikh rule. “The Sarkari Bagh was established by General Hari Singh Nalwa in 1822, and its original name is Hari ka Bagh or Garden of Hari Singh Nalwa,” Khan tells Eos.

A 2008 paper, published in Acta Horticulturae, contends that lychee was first introduced in Pakistan in the 1930s by Sardar Faqir Singh from Dheradun in India, and remained an exotic plant until the 1960s, when commercial production started from few orchards located near Lahore. Owing to its good fruit quality and profitability, large scale plantations expanded to Haripur, Hazara and, later, to parts of Sindh.

CLIMATIC CHANGES

In the last few years, farmers tell Eos, the fruit size and harvest quantity of lychee has decreased drastically, due to climatic events. These include changes in temperature and precipitation levels, unpredictable rainfall and increased frequency of extreme weather events, such as flash floods and droughts,

The rise in temperature causes lychee flowers to bloom earlier, making them more vulnerable to frost damage. The warmer temperatures are causing the lychee growing season to shift, potentially leading to missed flowering and fruiting stages.

Changes in precipitation patterns and increased evaporation due to warmer temperatures are also affecting irrigation water accessibility, impacting lychee yields.

Fiaz Malik says that recent wildfires in the surrounding hilly areas have added to the increase in temperature — going as high as 45 degrees Celsius — and there is a shortage of irrigation water from Khanpur Dam, causing the fruit’s skin to crack, also known as ‘lychee browning.’

“These two key factors have reduced the yield by 60 percent,” he tells Eos. “We used to export lychee, but now we are unable to meet the local market’s needs.”

Moreover, the orchards’ proximity to the Hattar Economic Zone, home to over 600 industries, is also cited as a reason for the decline in output. Ahsan Khan, a development practitioner from the area, tells Eos that these industries are major emitters of greenhouse gases. “They also contribute water and soil pollutants in the area, due to non-compliance of National Environmental Quality Standards [NEQs], as a result of legal and administrative shortcomings,” he adds.

UNRELIABLE DATA SETS

According to data from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s (KP) Directorate of Crop Reporting Services, Haripur had 10,456 hectares of irrigated land in 2017-2018, out of a total cropped area of 84,324 hectares. In that year, the province-wide production of kharif [monsoon] fruits, such as guava, apple, apricot, banana, plum (including lychee, which was placed in the ‘others’ column of the report) was reported to be 343,081 tonnes, which was 3.2 percent less than the previous year. The report said the kharif fruit crops were spread over 36,637 hectares. It added that, in Haripur, 565 hectares were used for kharif fruit crops, and total production in the district was 5,088 tonnes, with lychee not mentioned as a separate fruit despite its significance.

Interestingly, statistics for 2022, from the local crop reporting service of Haripur — which reports to the provincial department — show that 88 hectares of land was under kharif fruit crops, including lychee, with gross production at 4,943 tonnes. This would mean a nearly 85 percent decrease in coverage area and a 2.8 percent decrease in production.

When this disparity was highlighted to the directorate in Peshawar, its officials said that the local record was reliable as the data was based on information collected by the revenue department. The department said the reduction in coverage area and orchards was due to the unplanned growth of residential societies and commercialisation.

One local fruit contractor tells Eos that the Panjkatha area has around 125 acres (around 50 hectares) of lychee orchards left. “Around 50 acres of orchards were cut down due to water shortage and unchecked growth of residential societies during the last four years,” says Muhammad Murtaza.

IN SEARCH OF Solutions

Experts agree that farmers growing the lychee crop need to take adaptive measures, such as selecting resilient lychee varieties, adjusting planting schedules, implementing water management strategies, and adopting climate-smart agricultural practices to mitigate the effects of climate change.

This includes, according to Dr Ahmed, using known approaches to counter lychee browning. “One approach to control it involves using abscisic acid to reduce polyphenol oxides and peroxides activity, effectively controlling peel browning,” he tells Eos.

Another method includes treating lychee fruit with a melatonin solution before harvesting, followed by cleaning with acidic electrolysed water and storing the fruit in modified-atmosphere packaging with polythene film bags, resulting in reduced disease occurrence and peel browning, Dr Ahmed continues.

Dr Abdul Qayum, a climate change expert at the agronomy department of the University of Haripur recommends the development of climate-resilient lychee varieties, and the implementation of efficient irrigation systems and management practices to reduce water stress and optimise water use.

Meanwhile, the agriculture department has planted different fruit species over an area of 250 hectares in Haripur as part of a World Bank-funded project to achieve climatic resilience through horticulture. “We are also educating farmers to adopt and adapt climate-resilient agriculture practices,” says Mumtaz Khan, the department’s district director in Haripur.

Ahsan Khan, the local development practitioner, says there is a need to bring under control the hazardous industrial emissions and chemical-laden sewers from the industries in Hattar in order to protect the ecosystem, especially fruit orchards.

The writer is a freelance journalist and human rights defender based in KP. X: @MSadqat

Published in Dawn, EOS, October 13th, 2024