AGAINST THE GRAIN

India's two most valuable timbers-sandalwood and red sanders-have long been bound by restrictive regulations designed to curb illegal trade. Encouraged by the government decades ago with promises of windfall profits, farmers took to commercial cultivation, investing years of patience and effort. Now, as they prepare to harvest, a harsh reality is setting in-the promise of big profits is not quite holding up. HIMANSHU NITNAWARE travels to 19 villages across Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana to explore the reasons

- HIMANSHU NITNAWARE

IN 2009, when K Sharanappa planted 1,000 sandalwood saplings across his 2.8-hectare (ha) farm, he was not just growing trees-he was staking his future on a once-forbidden trade. Indian sandalwood (Santalum album), one of the country's most commercially valuable tree species, is worth its weight in gold.

High-quality Indian sandalwood fetches up to ₹78 lakh per tonne (1,000 kg), earning it the nickname "dollar-earning parasite" in international markets. For Sharanappa, a resident of Karnataka's Adapura village in Koppal district, the plan was simple: in 15 years, the trees would mature, earning him a projected ₹4 crore-an amount several hundred times his modest salary as a police officer with the state government. "I timed it with my retirement in 2023. I would be financially secure and my sons would inherit a thriving business," he says.

"But it has now become a burden," he adds.

His voice, once filled with hope, now carries the weight of disillusionment.

Sharanappa is among the first group of sandalwood growers in Karnataka, home to almost 60 per cent of India's natural extent of sandalwood, according to a study published in Discover Applied Sciences in November 2024. He took up cultivation after Karnataka loosened its iron grip on the timber's trade two decades ago. In 1792, the erstwhile Mysore state declared it as the "Royal Tree". Since then, the harvesting and sale of sandalwood remained a government monopoly. Even if a tree grew naturally on private land, the owner had no rights over it-yet was responsible for its protection.