Apple growers suffered huge losses last year as apple laden in trucks for delivery at fruit markets in Delhi was left to rot for weeks on Srinagar-Jammu highway after it remained blocked for several days due to landslides triggered by incessant rains. This year apple growers are gripped with the fear of spurious pesticides as rising complaints about the sale of spurious pesticides have gone unnoticed. Since spurious pesticides are by all standards of understandabilities a sever threat to quality and quantity of apple production Kashmir, the sale of such pesticides if allowed by the Government would ultimately ruin Kashmir’s apple industry which is the backbone of local economy in Valley. While the apple growers in Kashmir raise serious concerns over the supply of spurious pesticides to them day in day out in several parts of Kashmir Valley, the law enforcement wing of the Agriculture department is yet to take note of the rising complaints of apple growers on this count. There is nothing new in the rising concerns of the apple growers against the sale of spurious pesticides but with law enforcement wing of the agriculture department allowing the retailers to sell spurious pesticides the apple growers find themselves at the receiving end in Kashmir Valley. With law enforcement wing of the agriculture department allegedly compromising both the quality control management and as well as the regulation of the prices of pesticides sold at the retail outlets the markets are flooded with substandard pesticides and fungicides. While farmers usually take advice from the people running the pesticide retail outlets and not from the experts or Scientists, the sellers always prefer to sell the chemicals with huge margin of profit but low standard. Unfortunately the pesticide vendors never bother to save the wealth of farmer, i.e, Crop.
Increasing focus equally on both the quality control management and as well as the prices of pesticides by the Law Enforcement wing of the Agriculture is best suited to the growth and development of apple in valley.
Though farmers are time and again asked to seek advice from the nearest Agriculture & Horticulture offices before going for sprays, but they don’t pay heed to the advice of the experts. In a situation where apple growers don’t pay heed to the advice of experts a reach out to the apple growers by agriculture and horticulture departments for the purposes of counseling them on the use of pesticides recommended by Kashmir’s S K University of Agriculture Sciences could have reduced the intensity of the sale of spurious pesticides in peak spray season’s in Kashmir Valley. Increasing focus equally on both the quality control management and as well as the prices of pesticides by the Law Enforcement wing of the Agriculture is best suited to the growth and development of apple in valley.
