Farm boost in Valley as guns boom

Kashmir has witnessed bumper paddy and fruit crops this year and despite the ongoing civil unrest, there has been a massive increase in apple and other fruit exports from the Valley.

The apple harvesting starts in mid-summer and lasts up to early November. Other fruit varieties like cherry, apricot, peach, almond and pear become ready to pick earlier. Pertinently, the horticulture sector contributes around '5,000 crore to Jammu and Kashmir’s economy annually and it is the core sector of the state’s agriculture economy with about 4.5 lakh families engaged in it. Around 20 per cent area of the state is under horticultural crops. Among the horticultural crops in the state, apple occupies the predominant position constituting around 45 per cent of the total area under fruit crops.

During the current season, the cumulative exports of these fruits have touched a whopping 300,366 metric tons between April and September 2016 against 124,990 MTs during the corresponding period last year, officials of the state’s department of horticulture (planning and marketing) said here on Friday.

They said that a substantial swell in fruit exports from the Valley was witnessed during the month of September with as many as 22,117 truckloads leaving for Delhi and other markets across the country to deliver 249,996 MTs of fresh and dry fruit. “Last year only 66,259 MTs of fruit in 7,291 truckloads went out of the Valley during the month of September,” they said.

Giving details of the fresh and dry fruit exports, the officials said that 296,789 MTs of fresh fruit have been dispatched out of the Valley between April and September 2016 in 26,940 truckloads while last year the exports of fresh fruit during this period were just 122,987 MTS with 14,232 truckloads moving out of the Valley. Similarly, the exports of dry fruit have also witnessed manifold increase with 3,577 MTs being exported from the Valley in 643 truckloads between April and September 2016, while last year only 2,003 MTs of dry fruit were exported in 426 truckloads during this period.

The officials said that the volume of the fresh fruit that has been dispatched outside the Valley during September this year is 248,571 MTs in 21,866 truckloads while 1,425 MTs of dry fruit in 251 truckloads has been dispatched during this period. They added that in 2015 only 65,734 MTs of fresh fruit in 7,192 truckloads had moved outside the Valley during the month of September while the volume of dry fruit exports during this period was 525 MTs involving 99 truckloads.