J&K Plans To Get Apples Via NAFED, Growers Unmoved deccanherald.com

Jammu and Kashmir government’s offer to procure apples through the National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India Ltd (NAFED) seems to have remained a non-starter as less number of growers have come forward to sell their produce in the first three weeks. A state official said there is very little response from the apple growers to the government’s offer for procuring the apples through the NAFED announced in the second week of September. “Some growers had registered for the NAFED scheme after it was announced on September 11, but so far it has remained confined to mere registration process only. In the two major apple-producing districts of Shopian and Pulwama in south Kashmir, only a few thousand apple boxes have been procured so far,” he said. However, the official figures suggest that 20,000 metric tons of fruit were procured under the NAFED scheme in the last first two weeks across Kashmir. Ali Mohammad Dar, a fruit trader from Pulwama said they can’t sell the apples to the NAFED due to two reasons. One, he said, was the commitment with apple traders in outside-state mandis (markets) with whom they have been doing business for decades.