Fruit growers in Kashmir believe production in the region could fall by as much as 70 per cent this season due to rain and cold temperatures in recent months.
According to a report by the Indian Express, apple growers have been particularly hard hit.'We were expecting a bumper yield this year. But the rains and hailstorms have damaged a major portion of the yield,' Ubaid Javid Malik, an apple grower from South Kashmir’s Shopian region, told the newspaper.
The region was expected to produce some 50m cartons of apples this year for both domestic and international markets, the newspaper reported.
There are concerns the wet weather will now lead to increased disease pressures and growers in the region have called for financial support from the government.
'Our crop has been damaged. The government must intervene and provide us compensation for the damages. Otherwise, this industry will face a setback from which it will be difficult to recover,' Mushtaq Ahmad, a fruit grower from Shopian, told the newspaper.
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