Business2 min
Kashmir Overtakes Himachal as India's Apple Heartland Shifts North
A poor harvest in Himachal Pradesh and a high-density orchard boom in the Valley are reshaping who supplies northern India's apple mandis.
Kashmir is now outpacing Himachal Pradesh in India's apple trade. Data from the Indian Agricultural Statistics Research Institute shows Jammu and Kashmir harvested 20.45 lakh tonnes in the 2024-25 cycle, while Himachal managed 5.83 lakh tonnes. This season the gap has widened further, and trucks from the Valley now dominate buyers' attention at wholesale markets such as Pinjore.
For decades, Himachal set the rhythm for the early apple season. Cartons labelled with orchard names from Kotkhai, Jubbal, Rohru and Kotgarh travelled from Shimla district to hubs like Parwanoo and Azadpur in Delhi, often commanding top prices when supply ran short. This year, those cartons have been harder to find. Traders say early Himachal varieties were scarce in the mandis, and Kashmiri fruit with strong colour and clean grading arrived first, at prices hill growers struggled to match.
Himachal's troubles began in the orchards. Its Horticulture Department had expected a modest dip, forecasting 4.36 lakh tonnes. Instead, only about 1.37 crore boxes had been dispatched by the end of the harvest, less than half of the 3.49 crore boxes sent last season. Growers above 6,000 feet blame a run of bad weather: temperatures dropped during flowering, thin snow cover reduced the chilling hours trees need, and unseasonal rain, hail and erratic summer heat damaged both fruit size and appearance. Industry voices describe the problem as structural rather than a one-off bad year.
Across the Pir Panjal range, Kashmir has been quietly rebuilding its orchards. Old seedling trees that once needed 40-foot ladders are giving way to trellis-supported dwarf trees planted only metres apart. These high-density systems, often built on M9 rootstock, bear fruit in about three years instead of eight. Growers in Shopian and Anantnag say drip irrigation and easier canopy management have made their work cheaper and more predictable, while early-ripening varieties let them reach the market in July, when little other fruit is available.
The stakes are large. India's domestic apple trade is estimated at Rs 7,000 crore, and the balance of supply affects growers, transporters and commission agents from the hills to Delhi's mandis. For Himachal, the question is whether it can regain ground by protecting early varieties and adapting to climate pressure. For Kashmir, the rise signals that government subsidies, better cold storage and modern planting are paying off. For buyers, it means the familiar names on apple crates may now come from a different valley.
Read the original reporting on how Kashmir has pulled ahead of Himachal in the apple trade at The Tribune's explainer.
