Oversupply of low-grade apples depresses market amid modest price rise
Shopian, Oct 19: Even as apple prices in Kashmir’s wholesale markets have shown a slight recovery in recent weeks, traders say an oversupply of low-grade fruit continues to weigh on the market, preventing a stronger recovery.
According to traders, large volumes of C-grade apples including windfall dispatched from the mandis to outside wholesale markets contribute to a price slump that hurt growers through much of the harvest season. “Fruit growers have no option but to send their C-grade produce to mandis,” said Mushtaq Ahmad, an apple grower from south Kashmir’s Shopian district.
“We don’t have large juice plants here where the windfall could be processed”, he added. Growers and traders say that the glut of lower-quality apples damaged by weather or mishandled during picking and packaging flood wholesale markets, depressing prices even for better-quality fruit.
“Shipments of C-grade apples have been the main reason for the price crash,” said Tariq Ahmad, an apple grower from Shopian. “Traders outside the Valley are reluctant to pay premium rates because the overall quality of consignments arriving from Kashmir has been inconsistent.”, he added.
Peer Shabir Ahmad, a prominent apple from Shopian said that the cultivators must focus on proper grading and packaging.
“They must not mix A-grade apples with B and C-grade”, he said. “This practice lowers the overall value of Kashmir apples in the national market and hurts our reputation”, he added. Traders also urged the government to facilitate investment in processing units, cold storage, and juice plants to absorb the surplus and reduce dependence on outside mandis. “If we had adequate facilities to convert windfall or low-grade apples into juice or pulp, growers would not be forced to dump everything in the same market,” said another trader. “It would stabilize prices and help in creating more jobs within the Valley”, he added.The trader said that the market intervention schemes are important to prevent the bad apples from going to market.
