TIRUPATI / KADAPA / KURNOOL /ANANTAPUR / NELLORE: Rayalaseema has never suffered from a production problem. Drive through Chittoor or Tirupati in summer, and the mango orchards stretch as far as the eye can see.
Walk through Madanapalle’s wholesale market during peak arrivals, and the sheer volume of tomatoes establishes it as one of South India’s largest trading hubs.
From Gudur’s lemon yards in Nellore to the sprawling banana, papaya, and citrus belts of Annamayya, Kadapa, Kurnool and Anantapur, the region consistently produces millions of tonnes of produce year after year.
Yet, a bumper harvest rarely means a healthy bank balance for the cultivator. Good yields routinely flood local mandis, causing prices to collapse and forcing growers into distress sales.
Because fruits and vegetables spoil quickly, farmers have little choice but to accept whatever commission agents and traders offer. With cold storage scarce, grading done informally, and transport costs eating up margins, most growers sell their entire crop straight off the branch or vine.
It is against this ground reality that the Rs 1 lakh-crore ‘Global Horticulture Hub – Rayalaseema Rising’ (GHH), whose foundation stone was laid at Madanapalle on Friday, is being positioned as a game-changer.
The plan aims to build a network of collection centres, pack-houses, cold stores, and processing units across ten districts. But ask farmers in the field, and their metric for success is straightforward: Will this project help them take home a bigger cut of what consumers pay?
In Annamayya district, where horticulture spans nearly 67,700 hectares, tomato and papaya growers regularly face the brunt of seasonal gluts. When Madanapalle market receives heavy arrivals, tomato prices routinely crash to Rs 2 or Rs 3 a kilo — barely covering the cost of picking and crates.
The GHH will only work if local processing units and cold rooms are operational before the next peak harvest.
Chittoor presents a similar story with mangoes. Cultivation covers roughly 1.12 lakh hectares, with Totapuri occupying nearly 86,000 hectares to feed local pulp factories. Despite having a massive processing industry on paper, growers remain at the mercy of factory owners over price fixation, delayed payments, and arbitrary quality cuts at the gate.
In Tirupati district, perishability is the central challenge for acid lime and melon growers. While the State has expanded micro-irrigation under APMIP — covering over 2,400 hectares in 2024-25 — growers point out that drip coverage must be backed by immediate market connectivity. Further west, Anantapur’s horticulture economy faces a far more severe, existential threat: water exhaustion. According to the 2023 APSAC District Survey, horticulture spans 4,608 hectares in the district, led by sweet orange (2,851.91 ha), banana (655.66 ha), mango (551.94 ha), and pomegranate (270.87 ha) and other crops making up the rest.
Across these belts, drying borewells are forcing farmers to spend thousands of rupees on water tankers just to keep orchards alive through dry spells.
In Kurnool, onion farmers face severe price volatility despite cultivating over 24,000 hectares and supplying the State’s main regulated onion market.
Kadapa offers the most visible picture of farmer frustration. With over 83,000 hectares under horticulture — and plans to add another 75,000 hectares under GHH — the district regularly witnesses farmers dumping bananas and papayas along highways in Railway Koduru and Pulivendula when trader offers drop below harvesting costs.
Local growers emphasise that genuine relief depends on ground-level details.
The overall numbers for Andhra Pradesh are impressive — over 365 lakh tonnes of horticulture produce across 18.23 lakh hectares, contributing more than Rs 60,000 crore to the State’s Gross Value Added.
But for Rayalaseema’s growers, the success of the GHH will not be measured by project launches or investment targets. It will depend entirely on whether a farmer can hold on to produce for a week without it rotting and sell it without relying on a commission agent.