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Bumper crop, poor returns: Price drop, limited cold storages add to Kashmir fruit growers’ woes
As Kashmir’s fruit season nears an end with the last of the apple boxes being packed across Kashmir, growers remain sombre — saying the year was one of the worst for them despite a bumper crop
As Kashmir’s fruit season nears an end with the last of the apple boxes being packed across Kashmir, growers remain sombre — saying the year was one of the worst for them despite a bumper crop.
The growers say the rates provided to them were 50-60% lower than previous years.
Traders and growers at the valley’s biggest fruit mandi at Mazbough Sopore had little to cheer about despite the good produce, with market mandi president Fayaz Ahmad saying, “We have already dispatched around 17,000 trucks from this place to various parts of the country. This is the first time we are witnessing such a downfall in all the markets across the country.”
“In my life, I have never witnessed such a slump in the market. This is disturbing for all the growers,” he added.
On peak days, 2,500 to 3,000 apple trucks would leave from the mandi. As it stands, the number hovers around 100. “For the next two months, only about 100 to 120 trucks will be leaving the mandi every day. Many growers are still holding fruit with a hope the rates will improve.”
Ahmad said several factors were responsible for the slump in prices in the fruit mandies, adding, “A bumper crop in Kashmir, disruption of the national highways and the quality of the fruit have all contributed to the slump.”
Also blaming repeated chemical spraying for the deterioration of the fruit crop, Ahmad said, “Earlier, due to lesser sprays, our fruit would last longer. Now the quality gets affected before the fruit reaches the mandies and rates come down.”
Growers said they have witnessed a 15-20% jump in the apple crop in Kashmir this year, a fact seconded by the officials, who have also attributed the drop in prices to overproduction. “The bumper crop is the reason for drop-in rates,” Horticulture Director Ghulam Rasool Mir said, adding that the produce was significantly higher from last year’s 23 lakh metric tonnes.
While brief periods of decline in prices have been reported in earlier seasons as well, the losses have been greater this season.
“This is the first time that the American varieties are selling between ₹300 to ₹500 per box. If you calculate the cost of box, pesticide, fertilisers and other costs including truck fare then growers are facing heavy losses this year. I lost half of my investment this time. I do not know how to compensate for this loss,” Firdous Ahmad, a grower from Sopore said.
Sensing the spiral, many growers opted to put the produce in the coldstores. Limited space, however, has since emerged as a cause of worry.
“Many growers wanted to store their produce in cold stores due to low prices, but due to limited space they have to sell their produce at cheap rates,” said Ehsan Javeed, owner of a cold store at Lassipora in Pulwama.
“My cold store has a capacity of f5,000 metric tonnes and is already full. Once the rates stabilise, the growers will take out their produce for selling,” he said, adding that more cold stores could have saved a day for growers.
Around seven lakh farming families, approximately 35 lakh people, are directly or indirectly associated with the horticulture sector in the region. Apple itself contributes to around 8% of Jammu and Kashmir’s gross domestic product.
