Bitter apple harvest

The apple production in Kashmir, reports have revealed, has witnessed a 30 to 40 percent decline this year, according to the Kashmir Fruit Growers and Dealers Union. The drop in production is mainly due to erratic weather patterns and reduced precipitation. Worse, the decline in quantity has been accompanied by deterioration in fruit quality. Unseasonal snow and rains this year and the consequent low temperatures during the flowering stage played a role in impacting the crop.

The climate change-related impact only adds to sundry other issues facing the crop. One of these is the import of foreign apples which have caused prices of Kashmiri apples to fall, leaving local growers and traders facing heavy financial loss. In recent years, the import of Iranian, Washington, and South African apples into the Indian market has hit the market share of Kashmiri apples, which accounts for 75 percent of India’s apple production. This has aggravated the difficulties of local growers who demand protective measures. The import duties on foreign apples has never been more urgent but the centre hasn’t so far done much to address the issue.

We also need the UT government to intervene and ensure the growers don’t suffer heavy losses. The government needs to do more to ensure that the apple growers get a fair price as lakhs of families depend on the trade for their livelihood. In the past, the government’s efforts to help the farmers through the Market Intervention Scheme haven’t yielded good results. The farmers then accused the authorities of paying less money per kilogram of  apple. So, they prefer selling outside to earn higher profit, something that has now been made unlikely by the increasing apple imports.

This is troubling news for the Valley’s economy. Kashmir accounts for about 78 percent of India's annual apple production, totalling around 25-26 lakh metric tonnes (MTs). In Kashmir itself, apple farming is one of the primary sources of employment, engaging nearly 3.5 million farmers, which constitutes 27 percent of the region's population. The export of apples thus contributes over 8 percent to the region's GDP.  This is why the newly elected government will need to prioritise the sector and take urgent steps to address the problem faced by the sector.