Caught Between The Devil And The Deep Blue Sea: Kashmir's Apple Growers Face A Lost Harvest

(MENAFN- Live Mint)

SRINAGAR : In Kashmir's Anantnag district, Sajad Ahmad Nanwai spends what should have been a bustling harvest morning clearing rotting apples from the ground instead of supervising labourers plucking ripe fruit into crates.

“We wait all year for this season, but it has gone to waste. From ₹2.5 lakh last year, my orchard has fetched only about ₹50,000 this time," says the 42-year-old, as the pungent smell of decay hangs in the air.

The prolonged closure of the Srinagar-Jammu National Highway, the Valley's only road link to the rest of India, has left fruit growers stranded with their crop.

With transport cut off since heavy rainfall on 25 August damaged stretches of the road, growers are now forced to choose between leaving apples on the trees, where they risk falling and rotting, or harvesting them only to watch the fruit rot in trucks stranded along the highway.

Kashmir produces about 80% of India's apples , and the industry has already suffered losses of over ₹1,000 crore-a figure that continues to climb, threatening the livelihoods of thousands across the Valley.

Widespread damage

Among the 7,000 villagers involved in apple farming in Nanwai's village, Marhama, there is not a single person who has escaped losses.“I have never seen orchards littered with spoiled fruit or growers weeping among the trees as I have this season."

Across the Valley, the scene is grim, with growers' faces etched with despair, crates standing empty, and orchards strewn with rotting apples. Farmers watch helplessly as the season slips away, their hopes dashed by infrastructure that has failed to connect them to the market.

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September, once the most promising month of the year, has become a stark reminder of their vulnerability to logistical bottlenecks.

Images of decaying apples being dumped are circulating widely on social media, highlighting a crisis that has forced fruit markets to shut and left thousands of families, for whom horticulture is the backbone of the local economy, facing significant losses.

In Tral, 40 kilometres from Srinagar, Suhail Ahmad Sheikh stands beneath his apple trees, watching the fruit fall and rot on the ground.“The harvest is ready, but no trader is willing to buy," he says.

In previous years, even bruised apples were collected by load carriers and sold cheaply in local markets. This time, with transport routes blocked and buyers absent, the crop is left to decay, a sad reminder of how fragile livelihoods are when a single road holds the fate of an entire season.

Sheikh, whose orchard spans 20 kanals, estimates that nearly 80% of his crop has perished this season.

He explains that his annual input costs- ₹1.5 lakh on sprays, pesticides, and fertilizers, plus another ₹50,000 on labour-may not even be recovered this year.“I fear this year the input cost may not even reach growers," he says while gesturing toward the apples rotting on the ground.

The 45-year-old points to the lack of juice-processing and cold-storage facilities in Kashmir as a critical vulnerability.“If juice-processing units were available, at least the fallen fruit could have been used to provide some relief to farmers. Similarly, sufficient cold-storage facilities could have preserved the apples and allowed them to be shipped once the 270km highway reopened."

Controlled atmosphere (CA) storage helps extend the shelf life of perishable produce by regulating oxygen, carbon dioxide, nitrogen, humidity, and temperature. While frozen storage can preserve many food products for years, fresh items like apples cannot be stored under such conditions. For apples, the ideal storage temperature is maintained between 0°C and 3°C.

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Jammu and Kashmir has only 85 cold storage units with a combined capacity of 341,000 metric tonnes, sufficient for just about 14-17% of the region's annual apple production.

Nanwai says the failed season has left loans unpaid, disrupted children's education, and pushed households into financial insecurity.“We are six family members, and apples are our main source of income. Now, with the season ending in disaster, we are staring at a bleak future."

Fragile supply chain

In Chek village of Awantipora in Kashmir's Pulwama district, Sajad Ahmad Dar rues a decision that has cost him dearly. Before landslides and a cloudburst crippled the Srinagar-Jammu highway, a trader had offered him ₹37 lakh for the apples on his 20-kanal orchard, home to 2,800 trees. Dar held out for ₹40 lakh.

But as the highway stayed shut for weeks, prices collapsed and the fruit began to decay.“I now had to sell the entire produce for just ₹21.85 lakh, against an input cost of nearly ₹13 lakh," says the 42-year-old, whose loss captures the precariousness of Kashmir's apple trade.

Authorities briefly considered rerouting trucks via the Mughal Road, but its narrow and treacherous terrain could not handle heavy vehicles. Even the Indian Railways introduced special parcel trains to transport apples to Delhi, yet they could carry only a fraction of the harvest.

“Transporting apples by train is not a practical solution. Railway stations are located far from fruit markets, adding extra costs and reducing growers' profits," says Mohammad Ashraf Wani, president of the mega fruit mandi in Shopian.

Inside the mega fruit mandi in Shopian, hundreds of trucks stand idle, already loaded with apple produce and waiting for the highway to fully reopen. With storage choked and trucks full, traders are refusing to accept the new crop, leaving growers with no buyers.

The usual buzz at the fruit mandi is missing this season, with apple cartons that would typically sell for ₹700-1,200 now fetching just ₹300-700. Daily arrivals of 200,000-250,000 cartons are creating oversupply, driving prices down further and deepening losses for growers.

All fruit mandis in Kashmir, including the Shopian mandi, also remained closed for two days in protest against the stoppage of fruit-laden trucks on the highway.

By the time the highway was partially reopened for heavy vehicles, many trucks had already reached markets with spoiled fruit, resulting in substantial financial losses for growers.

“When the road reopened after three weeks, thousands of stranded trucks reached markets at once. Apples, which have a very short shelf life, either went bad or lost quality, triggering losses across the supply chain," says Bashir Ahmad Basheer, chairman of the Kashmir Valley Fruit Growers cum Dealers Union.

Basheer estimates the industry has already lost between ₹1,000 crore and ₹1,200 crore. With mandis struggling to clear the backlog, traders have stopped accepting fresh arrivals from growers.

“In a normal season, 1,000-1,500 apple trucks move daily from Srinagar to Delhi. This year, the flow was disrupted, and freight charges surged from ₹70 per 16kg box to ₹250, placing enormous strain on growers. Alternative routes, such as the Mughal Road, are either unsuitable for heavy vehicles or not practically viable," he adds.

The sudden disruption in apple supplies from Kashmir has forced traders across the country to seek alternative sources, while growers in the Valley watch their crop lose value, with prices tumbling nearly 40%.

For example, Sheikh says, an 18kg box of Kuloo apples that sold for ₹1,000-1,200 last September is now fetching just ₹700-800. Similarly, a 20kg box of high-density apples, which was sold for ₹1,500-1,800 in August 2024, was this year sold at only ₹800.

In Sopore, about 45km from Srinagar and home to Asia's largest fruit market, traders are asking growers to halt deliveries as a shortage of trucks and disrupted transport chokes the supply chain.

“We cannot accept fresh apples with a short shelf life when traffic is restricted to a single lane, allowing only a few trucks to move along the highway. Storing apples in the market would only lead to spoilage, as the abundant crop has already reached the market, but there is no way to transport it further," says a trader in Sopore, often called the“Apple town of Kashmir".

A perennial issue

Ejaz Ayoub, a Srinagar-based economist, questions why highways in the region are repeatedly affected during peak harvest seasons, noting a pattern that has persisted over the years.“I have observed that every harvest season, the highways face disruptions. In 2022, for example, a fruit grower even set fire to boxes of freshly harvested apples in protest over the closure," he recalls.

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Ayoub emphasises the economic stakes, saying a significant number of Kashmiri households rely on apple farming, one of the region's largest sources of revenue.“Agriculture and allied sectors, including apples, contribute 19.72% to our economy, while tourism accounts for just 3.5% of gross domestic product (GDP). I fail to understand why a 300-meter stretch of highway remained dilapidated for so long, especially during peak harvest season, when supply shortages have also fuelled inflation."

Authorities now claim over 137,000 metric tonnes of fresh fruit have moved out of the Valley in the past 10 days. But growers argue the shipments are a drop in the ocean, nowhere near enough to offset the mounting losses this harvest season.

According to Basheer, months of toil in the orchards have yielded only losses, making compensation essential for growers to survive the blow.

Kashmir supplies apples to fruit markets across India, including Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Ahmedabad, and Kolkata, as well as international markets in West and South-East Asia.

Basheer points out that both growers and traders are more concerned about the future than the present, fearing that the highway will continue to face disruptions from cloudbursts, landslides, and mudslides during peak harvest season each year.

“The question is what the government is planning to do to mitigate such risks and prevent recurring losses to the apple industry, which remains the backbone of Kashmir's economy."

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