Alpine Aloos

• Cheese 600 tonnes of prime mozzarella for US market
  
• Ready-to-eat appetizer jalapenos, baby potatoes and samosas stuffed with cheese and herbs
  
• Exotic veg and fruit asparagus, sugarsnap peas, zucchini, fennel, coloured bell peppers, joichoi, kiwi fruit
  
• Salads and Herbs Romaine, radicchio, lollorossa, thyme, parsley, dill

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Nestled in the foothills of the Shivaliks is Paonta Sahib, a nondescript town better known for its historic gurudwara. It was like this till two years ago, when Manmohan Singh Malik began making tonnes of mozzarella cheese, all of which he exports to the US and European markets. Malik's mozzarella is made in the authentic Italian way from high fat buffalo milk. "For almost a decade I was growing mushrooms here and had never even heard of mozzarella cheese. Then, I happened to attend a food show in Cologne where one stall was advertising its cheese as a product of genuine water buffalo milk. I thought of our own buffaloes back home in Punjab and Haryana, and I began exploring the possibility of using the abundant buffalo milk we produce." India produces 70 per cent of the world's buffalo milk, but much of it is low in fat and protein. "The biggest challenge for us is to get milk with protein content of at least 4.8 to 5 per cent and 8 per cent fat. Also, hygiene standards in Indian dairies are low, which affects the quality of the final product. So, in addition to offering the best price to the suppliers, we also educate them about the importance of maintaining good hygiene," says Malik. He now has a fifth-generation mozzarella cheese-maker from Italy named Raffaele Cioffi to supervise operations, and markets his cheese under the 'Unoitaliano' brand. From a small consignment of 100 kg two years ago, his Himalayan International Ltd now produces 600 tonnes of mozzarella annually. It's not available in the domestic market as yet, but there is hope for cheese aficionados as Malik is tying up with retail chains like Reliance Fresh and Walmart to supply it in Indian stores.

And that's not all. Paonta Sahib's proximity to the surrounding low hills encouraged Malik to experiment with exotic vegetables and culinary herbs like dill, thyme and basil. He now grows vegetables like red cabbage, jalapenos, broccoli and herbs on around 150 acres of land through contract farming. "We supply seeds of select veggies to the farmers according to the altitude at which their land is located, and guarantee to buy back the produce," he says. From this was born a flourishing new division which exports savouries and breaded appetisers. Then there are hugely popular herbal samosas stuffed with herbs and mozzarella, jalapenos also stuffed with cheese, and baby potatoes in jackets, boiled, stuffed and frozen for US supermarkets. In addition, some 2,000 tonnes of frozen mushrooms too are exported annually.

At about the time when Malik was experimenting with exotic vegetables in Sirmour district, around a dozen farmers in the interiors of Mandi district were doing the same. An NRI who hails from Karsog valley distributed seeds of asparagus, parsley and iceberg lettuce to local farmers, who were pleased with the results. They got a good price for their produce in Delhi's markets, and soon growing 'videshi' vegetables became the in thing in this remote valley. Today, almost 500 farmers spread across dozens of villages grow gourmet vegetables like asparagus, pakchoi, joichoi, snowpeas, leeks, cherry tomatoes, fennel, celery, coloured bell peppers, zucchini, broccoli, and a variety of lettuces such as lollorosa, radicchio and romaine. These are lapped up by five-star hotels, upmarket restaurants and foodstores in Delhi and Mumbai.

The newest vegetable in the valley is sugarsnap peas, grown perhaps for the first time in India by Vijay Rawat from seeds sent by friends in the US. The sweet, fleshy pea pod which is eaten whole is much sought after in the US, where demand generally outstrips production. "The pea vine, which grows almost six feet in height, is easy to grow in this climate, and I am selling some for the first time in Chandigarh this year," says Rawat.

Down a dirt track which branches off from the main road is Kalashan, a village of just 200 people, with slate-roofed houses scattered across an entire hillside. This is the headquarters of the Karsog Valley Farmer's Cooperative, which seeks to help farmers with the chronic marketing hurdles which small farmers face anywhere. Says Bhim Singh, who grows exotic vegetables on half an acre of terraces: "About five to six years ago, when we first began growing these vegetables on a commercial scale, we got the best rates. But now middlemen from Delhi fleece us. Sometimes there is a glut of some vegetables due to poor planning and we barely get Rs 5 or 10 per kg." With Vijay Rawat, a bank manager at the local branch of HP Grameen Bank, taking the initiative, the farmers have organised themselves into a group and market their produce under the brand of 'Northharvest'. "Our aim is to exist as a pressure group in the market so that prices do not dip beyond a level. We are also trying to link up directly with wholesalers to avoid unfair practices which traders from Delhi and Punjab subject us to," points out Rawat. If bell peppers sell for Rs 250 a kg in a Delhi store, the poor farmer in Kalashan is happy if he gets Rs 80 a kg for it. It's eight times what he would have earned from a conventional wheat or maize crop. The society has also taken a consultancy from Winrock International, a US agricultural ngo whose volunteers visit Karsog regularly to share vegetable farming practices and make available quality seeds to the farmers here.

Near Manali, there's another experiment going on; a successful outcome might provide Himachal's famous apples a competitor. Nakul Khullar, a third-generation apple farmer of Manali, is fast diversifying into kiwi. "We've been growing kiwi for the last 10 years on around 10 acres, and plan to double the area in the coming years," he told Outlook. Most of India's demand for kiwi—the fruit whose dull brown exterior conceals its brilliant green and juicy flesh—is currently met by imports from New Zealand and Australia, because Indian growers are unable to match the quality of the imported variety. Kiwi is being grown in smaller orchards in other parts of the state too, like Rajgarh and Kullu, but as Khullar points out, the growers soon lose interest because they are unable to maintain quality, and the produce then does not find a market. "Even though the Indian kiwi is sweeter, with better flavour, there is no market for a small-sized fruit," he says. The Khullars have worked hard to improve the quality of their kiwi, and currently produce 20,000 kg annually, which they sell under their own brandname, 'Baragarh Estate', to wholesalers at prices ranging from Rs 50 to Rs 100 a kg.

As with exotic vegetables, kiwi growers too face major marketing hurdles, since consumption is mainly in far-off metros. Help from the government machinery is non-existent but as Khullar says, "It is only now because the economy has opened up that we in Himachal Pradesh can try our hand at growing exotic fruit and vegetables because demand has shot up. People who tried growing these things 10 years ago suffered losses."

For years Himachal's lower hills were content with supplying off-season vegetables like peas and capsicum to the plains. They still do. But the enterprise of a smart few has pointed the way to a prosperous gourmet paradise to many of the hill state's farmers.