Pulwama: The almond production has witnessed a steep decline over the past several years with farmers felling the almond trees to pave the way for apple cultivation.
Scores of almond farmers, who owns large swathes of farming land in the Karewas of south Kashmir’s Pulwama district have shifted to apple farming over the past 10 to 12 years for a host of reasons.
The low market rates, lack of seriousness on the part of the concerned department and climate change, according to the farmers, are some of the main reasons for shifting to apple cultivation.
“ The almonds are sold at dirt cheap prices. We were unable to even recoup the production costs”, said Abdul Rashid Malik, a farmer from Payar village of the district.
Malik, who axed most of his almond trees a few years ago and replaced them with apple trees, said that the non-serious attitude of the Horticulture department toward the almond farming was one of the key reasons for shifting to apple farming.
“The department has not taken the almond cultivation seriously. The farmers are still using the conventional methods of farming. The authorities never organized training programs or issued guidelines for the farmers” , Malik alleged.
Another farmer from Malangpora village said that there were hardly any government schemes for the almond farmers.
“Most of the almond farmers have not heard about the new and high-density almond varieties. We are clueless if government provides any subsidy on these verities” , he said.
He added that climate change had also severely affected the almond production.
Official date available till 2011 suggested that acreage used for almond production has decreased from 16,418 hectares to 7,107 hectares.
Chief Horticulture officer Pulwama Mukesh K. Sharma told AM that no exact data about the almond farmers switching over to other farming was available with the department. He said that around 40 percent of the farmers had shifted to apple farming.
Sharma, however, said that the department would provide high density almond trees to the growers.
