SRINAGAR: Despite the shutdown and killing of a non-local apple trader, a driver and a labourer, apple farmers in Kashmir have managed to send six lakh metric tons of apples outside Kashmir, a report said.

Kashmir produces 20 lakh metric tons of apples every year. The fruit is cultivated on more than 37 lakh hectares of land across Kashmir. Kashmir accounts for 75 per cent of the total apple production in India.

The fruit earns Kashmir Rs 8,000 crore annually and provides livelihood to 33 lakh people including seven lakh farmers.

Quoting anonymous official sources, the report said that so far apple growers have sent six lakh metric tons of apples outside Kashmir thorough private contacts as well as MIS

After halting for two days at Shopian, Mohammad Waris, a truck driver from Rajasthan has begun to load apples in his truck.

“We come to Kashmir to earn our livelihood for years and we will continue to do that,” a national news agency quoted Mohammad Waris as having said.

The government had offered to buy the crop from the farmers due to the lockdown and shutdown after the revocation of Article 370 on August 5, under the Market Intervention Scheme (MIS).

The government has made Jammu and Kashmir Department of Horticulture Marketing and Planning and NAFED as the nodal agency to buy apples from farmers in Kashmir.

The government has also revised the rates for procuring apples. Under MIS the government has now offered Rs 70 for extra gift pack of apples while Rs 59 for grade A, Rs 43 for grade B and Rs 23 for grade C variety of apple. Other varieties like American and Maharaji have been offered at lesser prices.

Two more procurement centres have now been opened by the government, one each in Kulgam and Anantnag. The total number of procurement centres is six now.

The MIS will continue till December 15. According to sources, the scheme can be extended if there is a better response. To date, more than 3,000 farmers have registered with the MIS, the agency report said.

Another agency report said that more than 10,000 trucks laden with apples left Kashmir this week in a sign that the territory is returning to normal, according to officials and government data, after India imposed a clampdown on the region in August.

Involving some 3.5 million people, apples are the core of Indian Kashmir's economy, which went into a tailspin after phone and internet links were suspended and hundreds of people detained to prevent anti-India protests from erupting in the streets.

Thousands of trucks were lined up on the main highway connecting Kashmir, a Muslim-majority territory claimed in whole by India and Pakistan and ruled in part by both, to the rest of India on Thursday, signalling a recovery in the trade half-way through the harvest.

Beginning Monday, more than 12,000 trucks left Kashmir, bringing the total amount of apples shipped out of the region this year to nearly 0.7 million metric tonnes, compared to 1 million at this point last year.

"The exports are already picking up," said Ghulam Mohammad Dar, an official from Kashmir's horticulture department, adding that he expects the industry to ship out more than last year's total figure of 2.2 million metric tonnes.

Some mobile connections have been restored and restrictions on movement eased, allowing traders to engage with buyers outside the state. The internet remains suspended in Kashmir for fear it could be used to stir up protests.

Kashmir's apple industry initially came to a near-complete standstill as traders and fruit pickers were stuck in their homes because of strict movement curbs and the apples were left unpicked in orchards.

Traders have been undeterred by a slight spike in attacks by militants on people involved in the apple industry. Since Monday, suspected militants have killed a truck driver transporting apples and two traders, all of them non-Kashmiris.

Mohammed Amin, the president of the Fruit Growers' and Dealers' Association of Shopian, said freight costs could rise following the attacks.

Some traders are already paying double the normal rate to move their apples and it keeps going up, they said.

"We are sending apple to outside markets but we are suffering huge losses," said Fayaz Ahmad Malik, who is based in Sopore in northern Kashmir.

Apple growers and traders, though, have shunned a federal government plan to directly buy 1.2 million metric tonnes, saying the prices offered were low.

Since Sept. 16, the government has only bought about 1,600 metric tons, shipped out on 70 trucks, according to official data reviewed by Reuters.

An official from the National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India, which has been tasked with buying the government's share of Kashmiri apples, said the agency was unlikely to buy more than half its initial target.