Kashmir Pen News Desk
Srinagar, Dec 31: The Hill States Horticulture Forum has raised serious alarm over the potential fallout of ongoing and proposed Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) on India’s apple industry, warning that any tariff concessions on apple imports could severely destabilise the horticulture-driven economies of hill states.
A high-level delegation of the Forum, led by Harish Chouhan and including Maajid A. Wafai, Bashir Ahmad Naik, Izhan Javeed, Irshad A. Bhat and Sunil Aggarwal, met Union Agriculture Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan at his residence to present the concerns of apple growers from Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand.
The delegation stressed that horticulture—particularly apple cultivation—forms the economic backbone of hill states, sustaining lakhs of farming families and supporting a wide network of allied activities such as farm labour, transport, cold storage, packaging and local trade.
Farmer representatives expressed deep concern over policy signals emerging from recent and ongoing trade negotiations, including talks with New Zealand, the European Union, the United States and Chile. They cautioned that any reduction in import duties on apples, even through tariff-rate quota mechanisms, would place domestic growers at a severe disadvantage.
The Forum said the existing 50 per cent customs duty on apple imports is a critical protective measure for Indian growers, who already grapple with high input costs, climatic uncertainties and fragmented landholdings. Imported apples, they pointed out, often enjoy advantages such as heavy state subsidies, advanced mechanisation and export incentives in their countries of origin.
Members of the delegation also warned that proposals to allow apple imports from March would directly undermine the extensive cold-storage infrastructure built across hill states over decades with substantial public investment. Allowing imports at the onset of the domestic marketing season, they said, would depress prices and disrupt the entire post-harvest supply chain.
Such a move, the Forum cautioned, would have cascading repercussions across the horticulture economy, affecting cold-store operators, transporters, packers, commission agents, orchard labourers and thousands of apple-dependent families across the Himalayan region. Apple cultivation, they emphasised, is not merely an agricultural activity but a vital economic pillar that significantly contributes to rural employment and regional income.
The delegation placed a series of demands before the Union Agriculture Ministry, including an immediate review of any proposed reduction in apple import duties under FTAs, a comprehensive socio-economic impact assessment of existing and future trade agreements, stronger safeguard mechanisms to prevent market flooding, and structured consultation with farmer organisations during trade negotiations. It also urged a revision of the reference price of imported apples from the current ₹50 to ₹90 to curb under-invoicing and protect domestic markets.
The Forum said the delegation left the meeting reassured, noting that the Union Agriculture Minister listened patiently to their concerns and assured them that the interests of Indian farmers would not be compromised. This assurance, they said, has strengthened confidence that the issues raised will receive serious consideration at the highest level.
(AI generated representative image)
