‘Gone to waste’: Kashmir growers watch apples rot as key highway is blocked

The Kashmir region contributes almost 80 percent of India’s apples. But 4,000 trucks carrying them stand stranded.

Srinagar, Indian-administered Kashmir – A distraught Javid Ahmad Bhat fears he may lose the entire year’s earnings from the apples he grows.

Two trucks bearing his apples worth more than $10,000 are among rows of stranded carriers that stretch for miles along a key highway connecting his city, Baramullah, in Indian-administered Kashmir to the remainder of India. Their tarpaulin covers bulge with crates of fruits that have begun to blacken and collapse under the weight of rot.

“All our hard work for the entire year has gone to waste. What we painstakingly nurtured since the spring is lost. No one will buy these rotten apples, and they will never reach New Delhi. We are left with no choice but to throw away both truckloads along the highway,” Bhat told Al Jazeera on Tuesday.

The Jammu–Srinagar national highway – the only all-weather road connection in the Himalayan region – has been repeatedly blocked since August 24 after rain-triggered landslides damaged a section of it. For more than a month, the region has been battered by a severe monsoon fury, killing at least 170 people and causing extensive damage to properties, roads, and other infrastructure.

Blockade during peak harvest season

Horticulture forms the backbone of Indian-administered Kashmir’s economy, with the valley producing about 20–25 million metric tonnes of apples every year – roughly 78 percent of India’s total apple output, according to data Al Jazeera collected from fruit growers’ associations.

The highway blockade coincides with the peak harvest season in Kashmir, locally called “harud”, during which apples, walnuts and rice are gathered from thousands of orchards and fields across the valley.

“It’s not just me or my village – this crisis [road closure] is hitting all of Kashmir’s apple growers. Our entire livelihood depends on this harvest,” said Bhat, calling it a second blow to the region’s economy this year after the Pahalgam attack in April, when suspected rebels killed 28 people, severely disrupting tourism – another key sector in the valley.

A local government official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak to the media, said about 4,000 trucks have been stranded on the highway at Qazigund area in southern Kashmir’s Anantnag district for two weeks, and the fruit loaded on them has begun to rot, resulting in estimated losses of nearly $146m.

In protest, growers shut down fruit markets across Kashmir on Monday and Tuesday as they condemned the government’s inability to clear the key road.