Season of Apples, Peaches fails to bear fruit

With unrest in the Valley entering its second month, August that is normally the season of fruits has failed to bring cheer to the seven lakh families involved in horticulture in Kashmir. Spells of curfew and unending shutdowns have grown fears that the Rs 6,000-crore fruit industry has run into bad weather.
In this season of peaches, apricots, plums and apples, fruits have ripened but there is no market. With markets shut, even the varieties that mostly cater locally are finding no buyers.
“This is the main season of peaches, pears, plums and apples. These fruits are mostly consumed locally and sold in and around the Lal Chowk area, which is the main commercial hub, but due to the ongoing unrest there is no market for these fruits that have a short shelf life,” said a senior official in the Department of Horticulture.
The apple market is likely to be impacted by the unrest as the growers usually start plucking fresh apples from their orchards in August.
“There are threats that fruit mandi, which is the main place of marketing of apples, should not be opened. We don’t sell the fruits directly to traders, we sell them in the mandi from where people take them to other places. But the traders are not able to come due to the situation in the Valley. This is a big reason for worry as the season will end in September,” said Shabir, a grower from south Kashmir.
According to officials, the horticulture generates about Rs 5,500 crore to Rs 6,000 crore annually for the state, and most of it comes from the export of apples. Different fruit crops are cultivated on 3.15 lakh hectares of land with 1.76 lakh hectares under apple cultivation alone.
In the state where horticulture is considered mainstay industry after tourism, the unrest could not have come at more inopportune time. “Apple will be ready next week to be traded but I think it will bring huge losses. Where will the growers take the fruits to, there is no system of cold storage. We are already reeling under curfew so there is no point of business,” said Muhammad, a grower from south Kashmir’s Kakpora, which is one of the main centres of the present unrest in Kashmir.
The growers in major apple towns of Kashmir, especially in Sopore, Shopian, Bandipora, Pulwama who have invested lakhs of rupees in orchards, are fearing whether they can recover their money from the trade. All these areas have been hit badly by the current unrest which erupted after militant commander Burhan Wani was killed in south Kashmir’s Kokernag area on July 8.
Meanwhile, the Kashmir Valley Fruit Growers, a traders’ body in the Valley, said the association would follow the separatist shutdown programme for which they were ready to bear the losses.