India’s strawberry industry, concentrated in Maharashtra’s Mahabaleshwar region, is profitable but remains dependent on plant varieties developed and patented in the US and Europe. Farmers face high annual costs for replacement plants and significant weather-related risks, while researchers hope domestic breeding could reduce reliance on imports and produce crops better suited to Indian heatwaves.

About 85% of India’s strawberries are grown in Mahabaleshwar, where the cool November-to-March season and well-drained soil favour cultivation. Imported mother plants are quarantined and propagated into daughter plants for sale, with each mother plant typically producing about 20 offspring; a university-led gamma-irradiation breeding project may take 10 to 15 years to create India’s first locally developed variety.