THE BITTER HARVEST How concrete, rising farm costs and a changing grape economy reshaped Hyderabad’s ‘City of Grapes’

BIZ MASALA

THE BITTER HARVEST

How concrete, rising farm costs and a changing grape economy reshaped Hyderabad’s ‘City of Grapes’

A forensic business story on peri-urban land, Anab-e-Shahi and Maharashtra’s export advantage

BY MURTHY ASR  |  BIZ MASALA INVESTIGATES

 

THE DISAPPEARANCE OF A CITY’S GRAPE ECONOMY

Hyderabad’s growth story is usually told through pearls, biryani, information technology, pharmaceuticals and a skyline that keeps moving outward. There was another chapter: vineyards. For decades, the city and its surrounding countryside were closely associated with Anab-e-Shahi grapes, a variety that helped put Hyderabad on India’s viticulture map.

The scale of the decline is striking. In March 2026, a report quoting Sri Konda Laxman Telangana Horticultural University vice-chancellor Dr D. Rajireddy said grape cultivation around Hyderabad had fallen from nearly 15,000 acres in its heyday to about 400 acres. That is an attributed estimate, not a continuous official census series; it should be read as a reported measure of the contraction, rather than a precise audited count of every vineyard in Telangana.

The university’s Grape Research Station at Rajendranagar confirms the city’s historic standing. It records a world yield record in 1969: 42 tonnes of Anab-e-Shahi grapes per acre, described by viticulturist Dr H.P. Olmo as a ‘biological wonder’. The station also records that the variety was introduced from the Middle East around 1890 and that the name ‘Anab-e-Shahi’ was conferred by the Nizam in 1943.

The central business question is not simply why the vineyards disappeared. It is why land, labour, crop choice and export infrastructure increasingly made other uses of the land—or other grape-growing regions—more attractive.

THE SCALE OF THE COLLAPSE

Indicator	What the source says	How to read it
Historic vineyard footprint	Nearly 15,000 acres around Hyderabad, cited in a March 2026 report quoting the university vice-chancellor.	A reported historical estimate; not yet verified against a year-by-year official acreage series.
Reported current footprint	About 400 acres, in the same report.	The report says around Hyderabad; it should not be conflated with a fully audited statewide total.
1969 yield record	42 tonnes per acre of Anab-e-Shahi grapes, according to the university’s Grape Research Station.	A documented historic viticulture milestone.
Ranga Reddy district baseline	107 acres and 1,290 metric tonnes in 2019–20, on the district administration’s horticulture page.	An official snapshot for one year, not a historical peak or a measure of all Telangana vineyards.

 

Sources: SKLTGHU Grape Research Station; Metro India report, 8 March 2026; Ranga Reddy District Government. Links appear in the source register.

Chart: Ranga Reddy district’s reported grape production in 2019–20. A single-year figure is a baseline, not a trend.

1 | WHEN CONCRETE OUTBID THE VINE

A vineyard is a long-term agricultural asset. Vines, trellising, irrigation and crop management require sustained investment, and returns depend on yield, quality, weather and market prices. Land on a city’s expanding fringe, by contrast, can acquire a second value: its potential for housing, warehouses, commercial buildings, roads or other urban uses.

The March 2026 report attributes the decline primarily to real-estate expansion and rising cultivation costs. That explanation is economically plausible. As Hyderabad expanded, corridors around Rajendranagar, Maheshwaram, Tukkuguda and Shamirpet came under growing development pressure. The airport, Outer Ring Road and new employment clusters changed accessibility and expectations about future land use.

But we should avoid presenting specific land prices or annual vineyard profits as universal facts without transaction-level evidence. A plot’s value varies enormously with road access, zoning, title, permitted use and proximity to infrastructure. The forensic test is to map historical vineyard areas against land registrations, layout approvals and satellite imagery—not simply assume every vineyard became a villa plot.

2 | ANAB-E-SHAHI: A GREAT VARIETY IN A CHANGING MARKET

Anab-e-Shahi was known for large bunches and juicy, seeded berries. The Grape Research Station says that, over time, much of the area under Anab-e-Shahi was replaced by Thompson Seedless and its clones. That is a key piece of evidence: growers were already changing varieties in response to evolving commercial and agronomic conditions.

Seedless grapes became increasingly important in modern retail and export channels, where consistency, appearance, shelf life and buyer specifications can shape the market. Yet the story should not be reduced to ‘consumers rejected seeds’. We need evidence on local prices, yield economics, disease pressure, post-harvest handling and buyer demand to establish how much the cultivar shift contributed to the decline.

The Grape Research Station at Rajendranagar remains active, evaluating varieties, hybrids, rootstocks and production techniques suited to Telangana conditions. Its continued existence is a reminder that Hyderabad’s viticulture knowledge has not vanished even as the commercial footprint has contracted.

3 | MAHARASHTRA BUILT AN EXPORT SYSTEM

The competitive story is not only about which state grows grapes. It is also about which region has built a system capable of delivering export-grade fruit at scale.

APEDA’s grape information page reports that Maharashtra accounted for more than 69.24% of India’s grape production in 2024–25, with Karnataka at 24.63%. India exported 224,401.27 metric tonnes of grapes worth US$367.99 million in FY2025–26, according to APEDA’s data sourced to DGCIS.

Export markets require more than a good harvest. Growers and exporters need traceability, residue monitoring, grading, packing, reliable cold-chain logistics, buyer relationships and consistent volumes. APEDA’s GrapeNet system tracks registered plots and export consignments. Its 2 October 2026 summary listed 33,127 registered plots in Maharashtra and nine in Karnataka for the 2025–26 season; the report showed no export containers attributed to Telangana or Andhra Pradesh in that snapshot.

That is strong evidence of the formal export system’s concentration. It is not proof that no Telangana-grown grapes ever reach overseas buyers: APEDA notes that state-wise export attribution can vary when phytosanitary certificates are issued from another location.

Dimension	Hyderabad / Telangana: question to test	Maharashtra’s visible advantage
Grower scale	How much production remains, and how fragmented are growers?	APEDA data shows a dominant share of national grape output in Maharashtra.
Export readiness	How many registered plots, packhouses and exporters serve Telangana growers?	GrapeNet’s registered-plot summary is overwhelmingly concentrated in Maharashtra.
Post-harvest chain	What precooling, grading and refrigerated transport are accessible to local growers?	Export supply chains depend on integrated handling and logistics; quantify the actual gap before assigning causation.
Institutional support	Which producer organisations and collective marketing channels remain active?	Maharashtra’s organised grape-grower networks are a research lead, not a substitute for comparing current outcomes.

 

4 | THE AGRARIAN SQUEEZE: LABOUR, WATER AND WEATHER

Grape cultivation is labour-intensive and management-sensitive. Pruning, shoot positioning, canopy management, bunch handling, disease control and careful harvest all require timely work. As nearby non-farm jobs expand, farms may face higher labour costs or less reliable labour availability. The reported decline in Hyderabad’s vineyards has been linked to rising labour expenses as well as land conversion.

Water availability and weather risk also belong in the analysis. Grapes require managed irrigation, while rain, humidity, heat and hail at sensitive stages can affect yield and quality. But local claims about depleted borewells or a specific number of crop losses need groundwater records and grower evidence before they can be presented as established causes.

5 | WHAT THE EVIDENCE SUPPORTS—AND WHAT IT DOES NOT

Claim	Evidence status	Editorial treatment
Hyderabad was historically a major viticulture centre.	Supported by the university’s Grape Research Station history and 1969 yield record.	State as fact, with attribution.
The vineyard footprint has contracted dramatically.	Reported by a March 2026 story quoting the university vice-chancellor; not yet backed here by a complete acreage time series.	Attribute the 15,000-acre and 400-acre estimates.
Real estate and cultivation costs drove much of the decline.	Reported explanation and plausible economic mechanism.	Describe as the leading explanation reported by the university official; test against land-use data.
Maharashtra dominates India’s grape production and formal export chain.	Supported by APEDA’s production and GrapeNet data.	Use the figures with dates and the state-attribution caveat.
A single land price or profit range explains farmers’ decisions.	Not established uniformly across locations.	Do not publish as a statewide fact without transaction and farm-budget evidence.
Anab-e-Shahi became commercially obsolete everywhere.	Too absolute; the university station continues research, and varietal economics vary.	Describe the shift toward Thompson Seedless and clones without declaring the older variety extinct.

 

6 | THE BUSINESS LESSON: PERI-URBAN AGRICULTURE HAS AN OPPORTUNITY COST

Hyderabad’s vineyard story is a case study in changing land economics. When a parcel’s potential urban value rises sharply, the farmer’s calculation changes—even if the crop remains agronomically viable. Add labour costs, water risk, volatile farm-gate prices and a competitor region with a more developed export chain, and the incentive to continue can weaken further.

That does not mean high-value agriculture must always lose. It means growers need a business model capable of competing with the alternatives available to them. Collective procurement, shared grading and packing, traceability, direct marketing, premium local branding and access to cold-chain services could help some growers. Whether these models can produce attractive returns around Hyderabad requires farm-level analysis.

7 | WHAT WOULD A REVIVAL REQUIRE?

1.       Measure the surviving acreage and identify where growers are still active, using district horticulture data and field verification.

2.       Build farmer-level economics for Anab-e-Shahi and seedless varieties: yields, input costs, labour, water, farm-gate prices and net returns.

3.       Map access to packhouses, grading, cold storage and export-compliance services, including whether shared facilities could make commercial sense.

4.       Explore local premium markets, heritage-variety branding and agri-tourism only where water, land-use rules and farm economics support them.

5.       Preserve Anab-e-Shahi germplasm and document the social history of the grape-growing families before their knowledge disappears.

THE BIZ MASALA TAKEAWAY

Hyderabad did not simply lose a crop. It appears to have lost much of a distinctive peri-urban agricultural economy. The evidence points to a combination of urban land pressure, rising cultivation costs and a grape industry whose export infrastructure became concentrated elsewhere. The exact contribution of each factor still needs to be measured.

The most defensible conclusion is also the most interesting: when land acquires a powerful alternative use, a historic crop can disappear from a city’s landscape even while the country’s grape-export business grows. Hyderabad’s vineyards became caught between two different economic systems—the long, uncertain returns of farming and the rapidly rising expectations attached to urban land.

BIZ MASALA | FOLLOW THE LAND. TRACE THE CROP. TEST THE ECONOMICS.

 

SOURCE REGISTER & EDITORIAL NOTES

6.       Sri Konda Laxman Telangana State Horticultural University — Grape Research Station, Rajendranagar — https://skltghu.ac.in/research/research-stations/grape-research-station-rajendranagar-hyderabad/
Historic yield record, introduction and naming of Anab-e-Shahi, varietal replacement and research-station mandate.

7.       Metro India — ‘Hyderabad grape area shrinks from 1500 to 400 acres’, 8 March 2026 — https://www.metroindia.net/news/articlenews/hyderabad-grape-area-shrinks-36297
Reports the 15,000-acre to about 400-acre estimate and quotes the university vice-chancellor on real estate and labour costs.

8.       Ranga Reddy District Government — Horticulture & Sericulture — https://rangareddy.telangana.gov.in/horticulture-sericulture/
District grape area and production reported for 2019–20.

9.       APEDA — Grapes — https://apeda.gov.in/Grapes
National production shares and FY2025–26 export volume/value.

10.   APEDA GrapeNet — Summary Report — https://traceability.apeda.gov.in/grapenet/MIS/BrowseforSummary.aspx
Registered plot and export-container summary dated 2 October 2026; includes attribution caveat.

11.   National Horticulture Board — Area & Production Estimates — https://www.nhb.gov.in/OnlineClient/rptProduction.aspx
Primary portal for further verification of state/district area, production and yield time series.

Editorial limitations before publication

·       The 15,000-acre and roughly 400-acre figures are attributed estimates from a news report quoting a university official; they are not presented as a verified census series.

·       The claim that Hyderabad once exported grapes at a particular scale requires archival trade data; this edition avoids asserting an unverified historic export volume.

·       Claims about specific corporate vineyard owners, land prices of ₹5–25 crore per acre, farm profits, groundwater depletion, a ‘zero wine policy’ or exact export-market shares are omitted unless supported by primary records.

·       APEDA’s state-wise export attribution may not perfectly identify where fruit was grown.

·       The hero image is an original editorial illustration, not a photograph of a specific Hyderabad vineyard.