By: Azhar U Din
Horticultural crops especially apple, pear and cherry gained a prominent name and fame from the last two decades in Kashmir due to their pretty economic benefits. Due to the quench of economic thirst farmers in Kashmir have converted vast areas of agricultural fields into horticultural lands. Besides economic benefits, lack of adequate irrigation facilities also became a potent factor for the conversion of field land into the orchards. Paddy cultivation requires a good amount of water supply than horticultural crops like apple, peach, pear and almonds. In addition to this, the government announced a scheme to provide subsidy to the farmers for planting high-density apple orchards. Good road connectivity with markets also played an important role for the conversion of agricultural lands into the orchards in Kashmir.
According to the official records of the former state (now UT), paddy land in the Kashmir division has been shrunk from 163,000 hectares in 1996 to 141,000 hectares in 2012 thus, a loss of 22,000 hectares over 16 years.
In the valley of Kashmir, rice has been a staple food since ancient times. Here people prefer rice in both lunch and dinner. The area under rice cultivation in both the divisions of Jammu and Kashmir is 40% and 60% respectively. (Statistical Digest, 2015-16). On an average per person consumes 270 grams of rice per day in Kashmir. It was in the decade of 1930s when first-time apple cultivation was started in Kashmir and that time it just covered 12,000 hectares of land in the Sopore town of Baramulla district but in the last two decades, though apple production emerged as a major contributor to Kashmir’s GDP but at the same time due to the shrinking of agricultural land in the valley, the indigenous rice production does not meet the local demand and is augmented by imports from outside the Kashmir.
Economic survey of 2013-2014 reveals that the volume of rice imports in the entire Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir is continuously increasing at a high pace. Thus, the increasing bellies of Kashmir are going to depend wholly and solely on the paddy exports of other states. Experts have already warned that “we are importing more than 50 percent of our rice, and if we lose further production we are going to become even more dependent.”
Production of horticultural crops at a large scale not only makes the people of Kashmir dependent but also creates many problems. Water that remains in a static mode in paddy fields recharges the groundwater too. Prof Shakeel Ramshoo (Head of Earth science Department at Kashmir University) said, that shrinking of paddy fields will lead to less recharge, and thus there will be a scarcity of groundwater levels in Kashmir in the future.
The fast conversion of agricultural land into horticultural or residential lands also became one of the causes of the flood which hit the Kashmir valley in 2014. The vast paddy fields situated along the flood plains of the Jhelum river at both sides acted as a temporary reservoir during the flooding, and gradually released the runoff into the river system and thus prevented the abrupt overflow of the floodwater. In addition to this, fungicides and pesticides used in the horticultural orchards caused numerous health and environmental related problems.
According to the study of (Swerdlow SH., et al) toxic chemical pesticides like chlorpyriphos, mancozeb, captan, dimethoate, phosalone, etc. causes many chronic and acute diseases in orchard inhabitants of Kashmir. The most well-known side effect cited in the study was cerebral pain pursued by vomiting. The water quality of rivers and lakes is also being degraded by these pesticides and fungicides which in turn affect the human health and aquatic life.
To make Kashmir again self-dependent in terms of food grains especially in rice production, it is need of the hour that administration should discourage farmers from converting their paddy fields into horticultural or residential lands. No doubt, apple production is one of the pillars of Kashmir’s GDP, rice is everyone’s food and majority of the people in Kashmir are dependent on other states of India for food grains. To cultivate both food crops and horticultural products the first and foremost thing which the farmers of Kashmir have to do, is to practice horticultural farming in the higher evaluated uplands. While in the well-drained plain fields they should grow food grains especially rice and vegetables at a large scale. Irrigation department of Kashmir should also provide the proper irrigation facilities to the farmers, So that they will not face any water problem before or after the transplantation of paddy plants in the fields.
Another important thing which can help to cope up with this problem is the general awareness among farmers. Agricultural department should hold the programs at the grass root levels to aware the farmers about the importance of food crops especially of rice which is a staple food in Kashmir. It should also provide the high yielding variety seeds, manures etc. to the farmers at free of cost so that they can make possible the large production of rice in small size agriculture lands. Government should also provide good market facilities to the farmers where they can sell their surplus production of food grains at fair prices.
Finally, it is the responsibility of every Kashmiri farmer to understand that if the trend of conversion of agricultural land into horticultural and residential lands continues, time is not far away when entire populace would entirely dependent on other states for the food grains.
– The author hails from Anantnag, Kashmir and is a student of Geography at AMU and can be reached at azhardin325@gmail.com
