Agro-Economist

The present study is an attempt to study and analyse the trends in cherry production with the help of secondary data collected from various publications & official websites. It is inferred that even though global production of cherries changed significantly over past 30 years due to new developments; yet at overall level productivity of cherry is not growing at good rate globally and nationally i.e. 0.3 per cent and 0.6 per cent respectively. Production is increasing with 1.8 per cent CGR (Compound Growth Rate) where Turkey is leading the world followed by USA, Iran & Chile while its harvested area is growing with 1.5 per cent CGR in which Uzbekistan and Turkey is growing with the highest rate of 8 per cent to 7 per cent. Top five countries viz. Turkey, Chile, USA, Syria and Italy contributes 48.72 per cent of the total area under cherry in world. India ranked 25th and 31st in terms of area harvested and production growing at 3.6 per cent and 4.2 per cent CGR respectively, mainly contributed by Jammu & Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh. Jammu & Kashmir harvested 15555 MT of cherries from 2700 ha area in 2019–20 while Himachal Pradesh contributed only 12 per cent of national cherry production and 26 per cent of harvested area with-1.0% and 2.6% CGR respectively. Countries like Nepal, Australia, Sri Lanka and UAE were the top cherry importing countries for India in 2020–21 export to Nepal grew with negative rate and export to UAE increased 183.33 per cent this year. Total production showed more fluctuation as compared to cherry prices revealed by continuous decrease in arrival of cherry in different markets of India and lack of growth in its export.