‘Daylight loot’: Kashmir farmers suffer as rivers illegally mined

Start of the apple season hampered by unabated mining of rivers, hitting thousands of farmers as officials admit lapses.

Shopian, Indian-administered Kashmir – Ghulam Mohammad Mir, 62, looks grudgingly at the canal that usually brings water year-round to his and many other fruit orchards in Indian-administered Kashmir’s Shopian district, home to some of the finest apples grown in the lap of the Himalayas. Mir’s anger has a reason. The canal is dry these days, hampering the start of the apple season when farmers prepare the trees with minerals and fertilisers. “It is time to give trees their first shower (of minerals and pesticides) but there’s no water,” laments Mir, pointing to the parched canal. “It will prove costly, because missing even one spray (out of approximately a dozen recommended) can ruin the whole crop.”