JAMMU&KASHMIR: For the apple-growers of Jammu and Kashmir, the short shelf-life of their produce was a predicament. If something went south between the harvest and the time it took for the apples to reach the market, their months-long effort would have gone down the drain and it would have hit their margins. But that is not the case anymore, with the Controlled Atmosphere (CA) cold storage facilities that have mushroomed in the Valley.
The Controlled Atmosphere is an agricultural storage method in which the concentrations of oxygen, carbon dioxide and nitrogen, as well as the temperature and humidity of a storage room are regulated. The grading of apples is being done as per colour, size and weight. The temperature for the apples is maintained between 0 and 3 degree Celsius. All these in turn help preserve the fruits for longer periods of time.
The cold-storage units made entry in Kashmir in 2008. Since then, about 45 such facilities have been set up in the Valley, mostly in South Kashmir’s Pulwama district. The cold storage units have also come up in Shopian district in South Kashmir and Baramulla district in North Kashmir. According to Majid Aslam Wafai, president of Jammu and Kashmir Fruits and Vegetables Processing and Integrated Cold Chain Association, the maximum number of CA storage units has come up in South Kashmir, and about six have cropped up in North Kashmir.
Wafai, who owns a CA storage unit himself, said these facilities have proved beneficial for the Valley’s apple growers. “They increase the shelf life of apples by 6-7 months, without affecting the quality,” he said. This in turn has also cut the farmers’ financial losses, since increased shelf life means the growers could sell the products at their will and time. They are not forced to dump the produce in the market at throwaway prices. Mohammad Ashraf, an apple grower and president of Shopian Fruit Mandi, opined that the cold storage facilities are becoming a new lifeline for the growers. “We have stored about 2 lakh metric tonnes in the cold storage units as of now. If this produce would have reached the market all at once, it would have brought down the prices, thus inflicting heavy financial losses to the growers,” he said.
“The cold storage units have given us the opportunity to sell the apples even off season. Now, we can store the apples till June-July, after the harvest,” he said. Bashir Ahmed Bashir, a fruit grower from Baramulla and the president Kashmir Valley Fruit Growers-cum-Dealers Union, also echoed the sentiment. “The growers can now breathe easy even if the Srinagar-Jammu national highway, which is the only road linking Kashmir with the rest of the country, remains closed for days.”
Kashmir produces 20-22 lakh metric tonnes of apples annually. According to an official of the horticulture department, Kashmir at present has about 45 CA storage units with the total holding capacity of 2.15 lakh metric tonnes, against the requirement of 5 lakh metric tonnes. Bashir demanded that more CA storage units should be set up in North Kashmir incentives should be provided to businessmen interested in setting them up.
According to Director Horticulture Kashmir Ghulam Rasool Mir, “If the storages have 5,000 metric tonne capacity, they get a subsidy of `10,000 per metric tonne from the Central government. The J&K government, through its Top-Up policy, gives an additional subsidy of `14,520,” Mir said.