A number by itself tells you little. 

Say that Kashmir grew 21.10 lakh tonnes of apples this season and the figure sounds impressive until you place it beside Himachal Pradesh, which grew only 6.47 lakh tonnes on land barely two-thirds the size of Kashmir’s 172,000-odd hectares. 

Put the two side by side and a sharper picture forms: Kashmir supplies roughly 70 percent of India’s apples, Himachal supplies about 20 percent, according to figures compiled by the USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service and India’s Commodity Board. 

That dominance should mean leverage, but instead it means exposure. 

When national demand softens even slightly, the region carrying the heaviest share of the market absorbs the heaviest share of the loss. 

This year, a carton that sold for ₹1,490 to ₹1,605 fetched only ₹860 to ₹1,145, a collapse felt hardest by growers who have the most riding on the crop.

Walnuts tell a rougher version of the same story, but pointed in the other direction. 

China grows about 55 percent of the world’s walnuts, some 45 times India’s total output, most of it grown far more cheaply than Kashmir can manage. 

Chinese walnuts sell here at ₹350 to ₹400 a kilogram against Kashmiri walnuts priced at ₹700 to ₹800. 

Kashmir’s own share of its own domestic market fell from 85 percent to 30 percent in just four years, per Commodity Board data. 

Volume was never the problem, price competitiveness was.

Saffron shows what changes when policy actually intervenes. 

Iran produces........

© Kashmir Observer