NEW DELHI: Tajamul Habib Makroo was hoping a bumper crop of apples this year would help him recover from huge losses due to early snowfalls in the previous harvest season, but now he says a new crisis is looming: The arrival of cheap Iranian fruits, which growers like Makroo fear could upend horticulture in Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir. Concentrated in the southern
What’s the latest threat facing the Kashmiri apple?
It’s not homegrown. It comes from abroad. A Kashmiri worker picks apples at an orchard in Shopian. | Sajjad Hussain/ AFP
First, it was the political turmoil of 2019. Then, the pandemic of 2020.
Just when Shakoor Ahmad Reshi thought his troubles were over, a new threat surfaced: Iranian apples.
Reshi grows apples on three and a half acres of his orchards in Kashmir’s Shopian district. He is part of an industry which accounts for three-quarters of the total apple production in India and supports the livelihood of 33 lakh people in Jammu and Kashmir.
In Kashmir’s Shopian district, the apple orchards are part of an industry which accounts for three-quarters of the total apple production in India and supports the livelihood of 3.3 mln…