Bad times for cherry: closed factories, locked down markets

Bad times for cherry: closed factories, locked down markets

Shopian: The Dabal variety of cherry is finding no buyers due to closed juice factories in Kashmir. And as rains continue to lash the valley, causing damage to the cherry crop, the market rates are also plunging further down with each passing day.
According to growers, the market rates this year began at 30 percent less than usual, and now they have reduced to 50 percent as compared to last year.
“Despite a very small quantity of cherry being sent to markets, the rates are almost nothing, especially for certain varieties. Very few traders are operating these days and they, too, refuse to buy some varieties which usually were utilised in juice factories,” said Manzoor Ahmad Lone, an orchardist from Imam Sahib area.
Growers said that the recent hailstorms and frequent rains have caused heavy damage to the fruit, which now can’t be harvested. In other areas where the fruit has already been harvested, the market rates are such that growers are bleeding losses.
“Yesterday we picked and packed the Dabal variety but the buyers refused to take it. Some insisted on buying it for Rs 20 a kilogram, when the rates last year were Rs 150,” said Basit Shabir, another grower.
Orchardists said that it would be better to let their fruit rot than to bear the expenses of picking, packing, transportation and boxes, without getting any returns.
Kashmir produces about 11,000 metric tonnes of cherry which is cultivated on about 1.2 lakh kanals of land. Showkat Ahmad, a trader from Shopian, said that orchardists are not getting minimum support price for some varieties, which has forced them to leave the fruit to rot on trees.
“The main markets of cherry were Mumbai, Bangalore and Delhi. The cherry was sent there via aeroplanes, but this year nothing like that is happening while the Covid-19 situation in these places is worsening with a strict lockdown in place,” Ahmad said.

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