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| Onion bringing tears to consumers, apple to growers | | | ET Special Correspondent
Jammu | Oct 3
While onions are bringing tears into the eyes of consumers, apples are making growers in Kashmir to weep. The onion prices, which in the retail market in Jammu have crossed Rs 25 kg, have upset the budget of housewives, with J&K being most hit, since the state is solely dependent on imports from other states for its requirement of onions, as the crop is hardly grown in any field in the state. The prices of onion are once again sky rocketing as a result of the failure of crop, due to excessive rains, causing floods and water logging on the onion fields, in the onion producing states. There is hardly any respite visible in the near future on the onion front, since the farmers in onion producing states could not sow the same, with their fields remaining logged with water during the sowing season. It is feared that the price of onion, if no remedial measures are taken soon, may touch the record high of Rs 35 kg, particularly in Kashmir valley, where its transportation also costs much.
Against the onion, which has sellers market, in view of its supply falling much short of the demand, the Kashmiri apple is having buyers market, due to its bumper crop both in Kashmir and neighbouring Himachal Pradesh with which Kashmiri apple has to complete in Azadpur Mandi, Delhi as well as other wholesale markets in the country. At least it are the wholesale traders in Azadpur Mandi, who dictate their terms. With 500 apple loaded trucks stuck in traffic jam in Azadpur Mandi, the Kashmir growers and exporters of the fruit are facing a hell of time, with serious threat posed to the fruit rotting. The representatives of fruit growers in Kashmir complain that neither the state government nor the authorities in Delhi and other parts of the country have come to their rescue, to spare them of distress sale of their product. If their fruit laden trucks are not cleared from the jam and unloaded for sale soon the Kashmir fruit industry would lose millions of rupees, according to the President of Fruit Grows Association Shopian.
The fruit growers complain that while the fruit industry brings more than Rs 1300 crores to state every year and the agriculture production and marketing department charges 1% tax on fruit, it is not helping the Kashmir fruit growers in their distress. While the Minister incharge Horticulture, Mohd. Dilawar Mir claims that only 250 trucks are stuck in Azadpur jam, the growers association claims that 500 trucks are stuck, with each truck load of apple sold at between Rs 1.50 lakhs to Rs 2.20 lakhs, depending upon the quality of the apple.
Still another cause of concern to the fruit growers is the lack of adequate cold storages in valley, which forces them to sell their produce at peanuts, since the alternative is to let the fruit rot, leading to still more loss. The valley growers complain that the government has not come up to their expectations to create cold storages for their crop, to be stored during bumper crop season and to be sold later when it has good demand and can be sold at higher rates. They also complain of the wholesale traders in Azadpur Mandi exploiting their helplessness and earning huge margin. The high quality apple which the Kashmiri grower sell in Azadpur Mandi at Rs 25 kg, is sold in the retail market in Delhi at Rs 50 a kg during the harvest season, while in the later period of year its price shots up to Rs 70 to 80 a kg, since the traders in Delhi have ample cold storage facilities at their end.
Whereas Amri apple, for which Kashmir was famous and which had a good market all over the country, could lost much longer even without being put in the cold storage, the latest varieties of apples, which are called cash crops, due to the trees bearing fruit little after their planting, get rotten much earlier, without cold storage facilities. The Amri apple trees will take years together to bear fruit and in search for early cash the growers in Kashmir have switched over to cheaper qualities of fruit.
With apples in Kashmir as well as in Jammu are available at cheaper rates than onion, one wishes that apples could replace onions in cooking vegetables and pulses but it is not so. This reminds of year 1967, when in Punjab grapes were sold cheaper than the grams. |
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