India's Custard Apple Boom Transforms Desert Farms

When Ashoka Shivareddy's family farm in southern India kept losing money chasing water in a drought-prone region, they gave up and moved to the city. But the software engineer never stopped thinking about those dry fields in Kolar, where rainfall barely reaches 70 centimeters and farmers drill wells over 1,000 feet deep.

In 2018, Shivareddy returned with a smarter plan. He chose custard apples, a knobbly fruit with sweet, creamy flesh that grows wild in the area and survives months without watering.

The gamble paid off spectacularly. Last year he harvested 20 tonnes, and this year he'll reach 25 tonnes with huge demand both in India and internationally.

Shivareddy isn't alone in this agricultural comeback story. Across southern India, farmers are embracing custard apples as climate-smart crops that thrive where traditional farming fails.

The shift got major help from scientists. Dr. Sakthivel T at the Indian Institute of Horticulture Research developed a hybrid variety called Arka Sahan that tackles the fruit's biggest weakness: traditional custard apples spoiled in just three or four days.

The new variety lasts a week at room temperature and packs 70% edible pulp compared to just 30% in wild types. That means farmers effectively double their usable harvest without planting a single extra tree.

The Ripple Effect

The transformation is creating export opportunities that never existed before. Manoj Kumar Barai now ships custard apples to the US, UAE, Saudi Arabia and Europe using an intricate cold chain system where every hour matters.

Farmer Navnath Malhari Kaspate spent 15 years cross-pollinating seeds from across India to create his own variety, NMK-01, which yields an impressive 10 tonnes per acre. His thick-skinned, sweet variety opened doors to Gulf countries and Europe at unprecedented scale.

The latest breakthrough involves processing the fruit into frozen pulp and powder. Ice cream makers, bakeries and cafes overseas are using it, and it ships cheaper than fresh fruit while eliminating waste.

Maharashtra now produces nearly a third of India's custard apples. Researchers are working on preventing the pulp from browning after extraction and developing disease-resistant varieties with better appearance.

Back in Kolar, Shivareddy plans to add a pulp processing unit to use fruit he can't sell fresh. The equipment requires significant investment, but he sees it as the next logical step for farmers in water-scarce regions.

What started as one engineer's experiment to revive a struggling family farm is now part of a wider agricultural revolution turning India's driest land into thriving orchards.