Shopian, Aug 6: An intense windstorm accompanied by a hailstorm caused extensive damage to apple orchards in south Kashmir’s Shopian district on Thursday, knocking fruit off trees and dealing a major blow to growers weeks before the harvest season.
The storm struck at around 2 pm, sweeping through nearly two dozen apple-growing villages, including Bemnipora, Check Nowgam, Kachdoora, Hanjipora and Pandoshan.
Farmers said strong winds and a hailstorm lashed the area for nearly an hour, leaving orchards strewn with fallen apples and damaged fruit.
The affected villages are among Shopian’s key apple-producing areas, where horticulture is the primary source of livelihood for thousands of farming families.
An orchardist from Bemnipora said the storm had devastated his crop.
“More than 50 percent of the fruit was knocked off the trees by the strong winds. It has spelt doom for our orchards,” he said.
Nisar Ahmad, another farmer from the area, said months of hard work had been wiped out within minutes.
“Apple cultivation is our economic lifeline. We spend the entire year pruning, spraying, irrigating and protecting our orchards in the hope of securing a good harvest. All that hard work went down the drain in a matter of minutes,” he said.
Ahmad said that the chickpea-sized hailstones inflicted severe damage on the crop, reducing both the quality and market value of the fruit.
Several growers said the damaged fruit was unlikely to fetch remunerative prices in the market, adding that the financial losses would be substantial as the crop was nearing maturity.
Muhammad Ashraf Wani, president of Fruit MandiShopian, said chickpea-sized hailstones battered orchards for 10 to 15 minutes, causing widespread damage.
“In many areas, the damage is close to 100 percent,” Wani said.
He urged the government to introduce a crop insurance scheme to protect apple growers from recurring weather-related losses.
“The government must roll out a crop insurance scheme to safeguard apple farmers against such natural calamities,” he said. Shopian is among the largest apple-producing districts in J&K, with more than 20,000 hectares under apple cultivation.
The horticulture sector forms the backbone of the district’s economy and provides direct and indirect employment to thousands of people.
