SRINAGAR: With South African apples now coming into Indian markets, the costs of Kashmiri apples have seen an extra decline, leading to vital losses for patrons and growers.
Efforts by the South African authorities to broaden its market share in India have obtained a lift with a brand new settlement between India and South Africa, permitting in-transit sterilisation of South African apples and pears. This has enabled South African fruit to achieve retail markets throughout the nation extra shortly, sustaining their freshness.
Growers and patrons, expressed their dismay over the present state of affairs. They stated there was a drastic lower in apple costs in comparison with charges throughout the principle apple season in October-November 2023.
“The growing presence of South African apples in retail supermarkets and e-commerce platforms throughout the nation has additional diminished demand for Kashmiri apples, thereby decreasing costs and inflicting losses for growers and patrons,” they stated.
Tariq Ahmad, a fruit grower from Shopian, knowledgeable that they have been beforehand receiving round Rs 800-1000 per apple field in Indian markets throughout spring. Nevertheless, charges have additional plummeted, resulting in losses for growers, he stated.
He highlighted the nice demand throughout October-November final 12 months however lamented the diminished demand this time, which he stated was exacerbated by the inflow of produce from completely different international locations into Indian markets.
Many growers stated they have been already experiencing losses this spring, which have been worsened by elevated imports from varied international locations, together with Africa. They stated that patrons who had bought apples at greater charges final autumn at the moment are receiving lower than half of the worth, whereas additionally incurring further bills of round Rs 300 per field for chilly storage.
Regardless of bringing the problem of apple imports to the eye of authorities, growers stated no tangible motion has been taken to deal with their issues.
Bashir Ahmad Basheer, chairman of the Kashmir Valley Fruit Growers Cum Sellers Union, expressed concern over the losses confronted by patrons resulting from diminished demand in comparison with the earlier 12 months.
“Charges have additional declined in latest weeks as a result of surge in South African apple imports, which has led to over 40 p.c losses for growers,” he stated.
Bashir sought authorities help to prioritise home produce and urged instant steps to alleviate growers’ losses.(KNO)
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