Tasaduq Hussain
Srinagar, Sep 11: The walnut cultivators in Kashmir are highly concerned about their stock as they claim the business was entirely down last year and now the COVID-19 pandemic has cast a shadow as prices may go down further this year.
The walnut cultivators believe that the government must initiate concrete steps for global trade of walnuts so that the amount of loss suffered in the recent past may be minimised and it will help both the government and the cultivators.
Talking to the news agency—Kashmir News Observer (KNO), the walnut cultivators said that the business has witnessed steep dip due to the unprecedented situation last year and now the COVID-19 pandemic has cast a shadow on their business and people associated with it are worried.
Ghulam Mohammad, one of the cultivators told KNO that the last year was no less than a worst nightmare for people like him as the business was entirely shut and they failed to send their stock outside Jammu and Kashmir.
Tariq Ahmad, another cultivator who is in the business for over a decade now said that the situation in Kashmir very often forces them to give up the work.
“The situation is Kashmir doesn’t allow us to be associated with this business anymore but we request the government to initiate steps for the international marketing of the walnuts so that both the government and all those associated with it are benefited at large,” he said.
The cultivators said that the government must bring walnut trade on the international graph at an earliest and help the cultivators with handsome rates.
“It takes us a lot of money, energy and time to prepare and accumulate the stock of walnuts for sale but the prices given at Jammu mandi are very low which has forces us to sell it within the valley at unsatisfactory rates which discourages many of us to take up the same work again.”
The walnut cultivators have sought government’s attention and asked for the satisfactory rates so that the losses suffered last year aren’t repeated again as many of them are on the verge of starvation after investing huge amounts in the walnut business while they haven’t earned anything yet—(KNO)
