In Malik Shakeel Ahmad’s lush, terraced apple orchard in Hakura-Badasgam, the ground is littered with a carpet of fallen fruit, bruised and rotting after unseasonal torrential rains. Shakeel stares at an entire year’s labour lost during a harvest season that brings the promise of prosperity.
In Shopian, Bashir Ahmad Wani talks about a similar sense of loss. “We pray for good weather, but this year, the skies did not listen,” he says, his voice heavy with fatigue and despair. “What we managed to harvest sits in sheds because the highway to the rest of India is broken. There is no insurance, no help. Only promises that are never realised.”
Bashir and Shakeel’s tears are emblematic of the sufferings of thousands of apple growers across Kashmir as they reel from a dual crisis of climate-induced crop destruction and the systemic failure of support mechanisms. The recent heavy rains, which triggered massive landslides and forced the repeated closure of the critical National Highway 44 (NH-44), have exposed the vulnerabilities of an industry that contributes over 10% to the region’s Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP).
The Kashmir apple industry is facing an existential threat due to a confluence of extreme weather, crippling infrastructural deficits, and an almost complete absence of meaningful state intervention, including crop insurance and post-harvest management systems. The path to salvation lies not in lip service, but in urgent compensation, the revival of village-level cooperatives for value addition, and the genuine inclusion of growers in financial safety nets like the Kisan Credit Card (KCC).
To understand this urgency, there is a need for a quick recap of the present disaster and the larger context of neglect and fundamentally flawed policies.
Disaster, Fallout and Man-made Calamity
Unprecedented torrential rains in the late harvest season caused widespread “fruit fall.” The damage is twofold: the fruit that falls is often bruised, rendering it unfit for the premium fresh fruit market, and the remaining fruit on the trees can develop fungal diseases, reducing its quality and shelf life. Initial estimates suggest losses ranging from 45% to 70% in many of the key growing districts like Shopian, Pulwama, and Kulgam.
The disaster is further compounded by a man-made vulnerability, the fragility of NH-44, the sole surface link connecting Kashmir to the Indian plains. Prone to landslides and closures, the blocked highway meant that even the salvaged harvest could not be transported to markets in Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and beyond. The result was a catastrophic price crash and massive rotting of the highly perishable fruit.
Since cold storage facilities are scarce and expensive, the growers have no option but to watch their produce decay.
“The closure of NH-44 is an annual tragedy, but this year it coincided with the peak harvest,” explains Dr Tariq Ahmad Wani, political economist from Pulwama, and adds, “The government’s disaster management for this vital highway is reactive, not proactive. The losses incurred are a direct result of this neglect.”
The scale of the crisis can be understood only by appreciating the centrality of horticulture, and apples in particular, to Kashmir. With an annual production of over 2 million metric tonnes, Kashmir accounts for nearly 75% of India’s apple production. This ₹10,000 crore ecosystem encompasses 3.3 million growers, transporters, packers, pesticide dealers, and countless others whose livelihoods are inextricably linked to the fate of the harvest.
The Lack of Support
In the face of such a calamity, growers find themselves in a policy vacuum. The promises of support have, as many put it, remained “lip service.”
The Crop Insurance Chasm: The most glaring omission is the near-total lack of crop insurance. Despite numerous government schemes on paper, the penetration of viable crop insurance among Kashmiri horticulturists is abysmally low. The models are often ill-suited to the region’s specific risks, paperwork is labyrinthine, and claim settlement is notoriously slow and difficult.
For a majority of growers, the concept of insuring their orchards against weather events remains a distant dream, leaving them to bear the entire brunt of losses themselves.
Kisan Credit Card (KCC): While the KCC scheme is touted as a key initiative for farmer financial inclusion, its implementation in Kashmir’s horticulture sector is fraught with issues. Growers report inadequate credit limits that do not reflect the high input costs of apple cultivation (pesticides, fungicides, labour, etc.).
Furthermore, the procedural hurdles and demand for collateral often exclude small and marginal farmers, who form the majority. The credit, when available, is not tailored to the slow-growing nature of horticulture, pushing many into the clutches of informal lenders at exorbitant interest rates.
Pre- and Post-Harvest Neglect: The extension services meant to advise growers on mitigating weather damage are under-resourced. More critically, there is a staggering lack of investment in building localised infrastructure for value addition. When fruit falls or is damaged, it is often still suitable for processing into juice, jam, or concentrates—industries that could salvage significant value and create local employment. Yet, such processing units are few and far between.
A Path to Revival
Addressing this deep crisis requires a shift from ad-hoc sympathy to a strategic, long-term intervention. The following measures are urgent necessities:
Immediate and Transparent Compensation: The government must conduct a swift, transparent assessment of losses and disburse immediate compensation to affected growers to prevent a wave of indebtedness and distress in the rural economy. The process must be free from red tape and corruption to ensure aid reaches the genuine sufferers.
Revival of Village-Level Cooperatives: The long-term solution lies in empowering growers collectively. A concerted effort to revive and strengthen horticulture cooperatives at the village level is crucial. These cooperatives could pool resources to invest in shared infrastructure like small-scale processing plants for producing jam, jelly, and juice from fallen or lower-grade fruit, collectively bargain and negotiate better prices for inputs and outputs, breaking the hold of middlemen, as collectively negotiate with insurance companies and streamline the insurance process for members.
Building a Resilient Infrastructure: The government must prioritise making NH-44 all-weather resilient. This requires serious investment in engineering solutions to prevent landslides, not just temporary clearances. Additionally, promoting the establishment of cold chains and packhouses closer to the orchards would reduce the absolute dependency on the highway during peak season.
Tailored Financial Products: Banks and financial institutions must be encouraged to design KCC products and agriculture loans specifically for horticulture, with realistic credit limits and flexible repayment schedules linked to the harvest cycle. Insurance products need to be simplified and customised for the unique risks of Kashmiri apple cultivation.
Before the next harvest is washed away, the government must invest meaningfully in saving the apple industry from collapsing permanently.
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