November is the peak wedding season in India’s Kashmir region. But Riyaz Dar’s sister didn’t get married last month, as planned. Unusually early and heavy snowfall split the trunks of 60 of Dar’s 100 apple trees in November, leading to huge apple—and financial—losses just before the harvest in Shopian, a region known as Kashmir’s apple bowl. “Even if the climate remains favorable in the years to come, I will get only 40 percent (of the apples) I used to harvest,” lamented the farmer from the village of Hirpora. The snow…
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