Kashmir apple growers hit hard as highway closure slashes prices by 40%

Srinagar: Apple prices have plunged by nearly 40 percent after the Srinagar-Jammu National Highway remained shut for almost three weeks from late August to mid September, choking supplies from Kashmir and inflicting heavy losses on growers.

The crisis has not only left truckloads of fruit stranded and rotting but also deepened a perception among growers that the Centre is deliberately undermining the Valley’s fruit economy.

The highway blockade, coming at the peak of the apple season, has left Kashmir’s horticulture sector paralysed. Kashmir’s economy, majorly dependent on agriculture, suffered a huge blow in recent years due to extreme weather patterns and frequent blockade of national highway during peak harvesting season.

Kashmir produces more than 20 lakh metric tonnes of apples annually, accounting for nearly 70 percent of India’s apple production. Apples from Kashmir are exported to Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Ahmadabad, Kolkata, and even international markets in the Middle East and Southeast Asia.

“This is not the first time our trucks have been stopped. Every year it happens when our apples are ready for markets, and now the situation has become unbearable,” said Bashir Ahmad Basheer, Chairman of the All Kashmir Fruit Growers Union.

“Rates outside are very low compared to our expectations, and whatever produce is reaching the markets is mostly damaged after being stuck on the highway. There is a dip in prices by over 40 percent. Buyers are not ready to pay even the basic cost of production,” he said.

In a recent video message, Vijay Talra, a representative of Delhi’s Azadpur Mandi, appealed to growers to hold back non-perishable fruit until prices stabilise. “Only perishable fruit should be sent now as the rates have come down,” he said.

The prolonged blockade has strengthened suspicions among many in Kashmir that fruit trucks are being deliberately slowed down or stopped to hurt the Valley’s economy. Growers point out that while the highway is periodically opened for other traffic, apple trucks remain stranded for days together.

“It feels as if the government is choking Kashmir’s fruit industry by design,” a fruit grower from Sopore alleged, demanding compensation and long-term guarantees for safe passage of fruit-laden vehicles.

With the current disruption, both growers and traders warn that Kashmir’s horticulture economy faces one of its most severe crises in recent years, even as northern India’s mandis reel under irregular supplies and falling quality of fruit.