On Saturday, in the district of Shopian in south Kashmir, the Apple producers’ Federation of India (AFFI) kicked off the first of a two-day national meeting of apple producers.
There were around 200 delegates there, all hailing from apple-producing regions.
Senior CPI (M) leader Muhammad Yousuf Tarigami, speaking at a press conference, said that the All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) and the Jammu and Kashmir Kissan Tehreek held an apple workshop last year to discuss the problems facing apple farmers in all of India’s apple-growing regions.
Experts from the world’s leading academic institutions were present at the event, he added.
According to Tarigami, the decision to undertake a coordinated effort to help the apple growers was made at the session.
Tarigami said that the apple growers’ reasonable requests would not be met until they banded together under a common cause.
Tarigami said the governing dispensations had to give in to the demands of the farms anytime they launched a unified effort, referring to the current farmers’ protest against the three problematic agricultural legislation.
“Many said the current dispensation would not listen to their demands in the recent farmers’ protests,” he stated. “We see finally the government had to give in to their demands.”
Tarigami said that in order to safeguard the apple business, apple growers needed to present a unified front.
He said that AIKS fully backed the formation of the AFFI so that farmers would have a place to voice their legitimate concerns.
Tarigami criticised the government for removing the supplemental import charge on Washington apples, claiming that the move will hurt local farmers.
Tarigami stated we should put aside our differences in politics and geography and work together for the farmers.
Ashok Dhawale, president of AIKS, spoke earlier at the conference and claimed that skyrocketing input prices were the biggest problem facing farmers today.
Neither the farmers nor the consumers are benefiting from the current market conditions, he added.
According to Dhawale, the difficulties encountered by apple producers in Kashmir are far greater than those experienced by farmers everywhere else in the nation.
Last year, all the apple cargo on trucks along the National Highway rotted because the authorities had stopped them.
According to Dhawale, this is a chronic issue in Kashmir.
He said the current administration’s goal was to ruin the lives of apple producers via infrastructure problems on the National Highway.
He said that over a hundred thousand farmers in the nation had committed suicide over the course of the previous nine years.
Dhawale said that “they were groaning under the burden of crushing debts,” adding that the farmers of Kashmir were in the same financial bind.
The farmers’ solidarity was another point of emphasis he made.
Senior Kissan leader Zahoor Ahmad gave a comprehensive report at the summit.
The report was divided up into many sections, one of which was a “charter of demands.”
