Valley apples everywhere but brand Kashmir nowhere in sight

Despite being one of the largest apple producing regions in the entire South Asia, Kashmir has not been able to establish its product as a brand across the markets.
Kashmir produces 16 to 18 lakh tonnes of apple every year with bulk of the produce dispatched to different markets across India. However, the apple business here is yet to be granted the industry status.
The bulk of Kashmir apple is branded and gets traded through the old and worn out traditional methods despite technological advancements in the field of horticulture.
As per the National Horticulture Board, Jammu and Kashmir is the largest apple-producing state of the country catering to 70 per cent of the total demand in the country.
Commission agents
Majority of the apple growers across Kashmir still employ traditional grading methods and remain dependent on the commissioning and forwarding agents sitting in New Delhi’s Azadpur
fruit mandi for financial support and advances.
“Proper price forecasting could have helped local growers dispatch their produce to various markets accordingly. But prices are still being dictated by the commissioning or forwarding agents sitting in Delhi markets,” said Khursheed Ahmad Ganai, an apple grower from the Zainageer area of Spore.
Ganai prefers to sell his produce at the Sopore Fruit Mandi, one of the biggest fruit markets in Kashmir.
“Here, the government and banks could have played a bigger role by devising apple insurance schemes and generously financing the marginal apple producers, which unfortunately has not happened to the scale as it should have been,” he said.
Grading techniques
Ehsan Javed, who owns Golden Apple Cold Storage in south Kashmir’s Pulwama district, says that the Valley growers have not been able to establish and market Kashmir apple as a brand.
“The grading and packing are still traditional. Our grower still prefers to send out his produce stuffed in wooded boxes and cushioned by paddy straw despite there being new methods of grading and packaging,” said Ehsan, whose controlled atmosphere (CA) store facility, with an initial capacity of 2,000 ton, was inaugurated by then Chief Minister Omar Abdullah in September 2013.
As per estimates, out of the 16 lakh tonne apple produce, over 40 per cent is of ‘A-grade’ or ‘super fine’ quality, which is export oriented. But due to variety of reasons, Kashmir apple is still not exported to overseas markets.
Domestic market
“India is huge market for Kashmir apple. It is not exported as the bulk of it gets consumed domestically. Besides, the local growers or the people involved with the trade never thought on the lines, which would have involved employing grading and packaging techniques,” added Ehsan.
He said there was a huge potential for increasing the controlled atmosphere storage facilities in Kashmir, which is currently limited to 60,000 tonne.
Conceding that Kashmir apple was not exported to European or other western markets due to strict quarantine rules and other factors, like poor grading, Deputy Director, Horticulture (Planning & Marketing), Kashmir, Qazi Aijaz said: “The thrust of the J&K Government is now to tap Dubai and other Gulf markets with emphasis on involving better techniques in pre-harvesting and post-harvesting of apple.”
Controlled storage
“Currently, Kashmir has the controlled atmosphere store capacity of 60,000 tonne, whereas 40,000 tonne controlled atmosphere storage capacity is under process,” said Aijaz. In fact, it is being argued that due to dearth of cold storage facilities Kashmir is not able to regulate the supply of apples in the markets across the country, which is one of the reasons for bringing the prices down.
Market intervention
To facilitate proper grading of apples, the J&K Government had introduced a market intervention scheme few years ago, under which it would buy C-grade apples from the growers on fixed prices. The stock was later supplied to local processing units for obtaining apple concentrate and jams.
The scheme had helped growers and also facilitated dispatch of A-grade apples to various markets across the country. However, the scheme was abandoned later.
“The scheme has been introduced this year again. It will help in quality control and also give a flip to the local processing industry and help in creating jobs,” said Aijaz.
Focus on harvesting
New-age entrepreneurs like Ehsan Javed argue that with the introduction of controlled atmosphere storage facilities and new packaging material, apple growers in Kashmir now have more say in determining the rates of the apple and accordingly dispatch their produce to the markets outside Kashmir.
“As far as post-harvesting is concerned, things have improved with added controlled atmosphere storages and modern grading and packaging techniques. What is needed is attention on pre-harvesting techniques like planting high-yield varieties, proper disease and pest control, etc…,” Ehsan said.