Apple growers in Kashmir continue to suffer huge losses as Apple is down and for the last two months there have been no signs of improvement.
Growers from different areas told the news agency—Kashmir News Observer (KNO), the fruit demand has remained very low this year and there wasn’t a market down like this in the last decade.
Javaid Ahmad, a fruit grower from Pulwama said that this year the rates of apple boxes have almost doubled besides that the labour charges, and fertilizer and pesticide rates have increased due to which they were already suffering.
He said that freight rates have also increased and growers aren’t even able to fetch the amount that they have spent on it in the ongoing year.
Ghulam Hassan Nengroo, president of the fruit growers Association Dachnipora, Anantnag while talking to KNO, said that the market is very down and the Apple boxes which were fetching amounts Rs 1000-1100 last year aren’t even fetching Rs 400 this year.
He said that growers aren’t even able to fetch the amount that they spent on apple this year for fertilizers, pesticides and other things and if the government won’t intervene, this industry will crumble as growers even haven’t money now to buy fertilizers, pesticides and insecticides.
He said that only the government can save this industry if they will intervene by waiving off loans of growers and providing them fertilizers, pesticides and insecticides at subsidized rate in the coming year.
Growers said that they have already suffered huge losses since 2019 due to clampdown, then Covid-19, hailstorm, climate change, early snowfall, outbreak of diseases and other things.
They said that if the same condition continues for a year, they would be left with no option other than to shift to some other crop and cut down Apple trees.
They requested higher ups to intervene and save this industry from collapsing—(KNO)