Suhail Bhat
SRINAGAR, June 24: The vegetable growers of Kashmir are bearing the brunt of Coronavirus as the demand-supply chain has been severely hit by the lockdown that was imposed to stem the spread of the virus.
The growers said they are finding it hard to get buyers for their crop and everyone involved in the chain from farmers to vegetable sellers and dealers are financially broken due to the pandemic.
Some 17 kilometres away from Srinagar, the growers at Bugam villages are forlorn as there are no takers for their first harvest. “There is no demand at all. It seems we have to throw away this crop as it cannot be stored for being highly perishable,” Waseem Ahmad, a grower from Bugam village of central Kashmir’s Budgam district said, adding that they are unable to transport the crop to the mandis outside Kashmir.
What is adding to their worries is a steep fall in prizes. “Today a kilogram of carrot sells at Rs 7 and cabbage at Rs 10-15. The other vegetable rates are also low,” he said.
Given its huge vegetable production, Bugam village is known as the mini-Punjab of Kashmir and farmers here grow vegetables like spinach, cabbage, peas, carrot etc. It is one of many villages of Budgam where people have achieved financial success by growing vegetables. During the Kharif or monsoon season Budgam produces around 175 tons of vegetables, 25% of the 700 tons of vegetables produced in the Kashmir. However, the pandemic has ruined the first harvest of crops this year.
Nasir Ismail, another vegetable grower said that the vegetables have not even fetched him the production costs. For example, he said, last year sale of pea crop earned him around 1 lakh rupees, but this year the same quantity of crop could only fetch him around Rs 20,000. “I sold one kilogram of pees at 10-15 rupees this year which was less than half of the actual price. It could not even equivalent to the production costs,” he said.
With the slump in business people involved in the whole supply chain including transporters and dealers got severely hit.
Bashir Ahmad, a vegetable dealer at Valley’s largest fruit Mandi Pamripore, told Excelsior that the pandemic has disturbed the whole supply chain and growers are the worst victim. “There is no problem with transportation but demand is less. The rates are so low that farmers are unable to fetch production cost,” he said.
He added at this time of the year the farmers export their vegetables to Ladakh. “They are unable to do that due to the disease as one has to undergo quarantine of 14 days for visiting the place,” he said, adding that the local consumption of the Kashmiri crops has also declined as plenty of other varieties are available.
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