Horticulturesector has emerged as a backbone of Kashmir’s economy contributing a revenue ofaround 8000 crores, involving 33 lakh individual workforce at various phases ofharvesting, processing, storage and distribution. Apple harvest contributes tothe major chunk of the horticulture economy. The production of apples as per2019-20 data has crossed 2 million metric tonnes making India as the 5thlargest apple producing country in the world. However unlike improved productivityof harvest the growth in the processing and storage has remained stagnant. Mostof the apples are sold for fresh eating purpose and very little goes intoprocessing and storage. In contrast to the developed economies such as New Yorkwhich is the second largest apple producing state in the United States, onlyhalf of the production is being utilised for fresh eating and about half goesinto processing juices, sauce, pie fillings etc. In Poland as high as 58% ofthe harvested apples are used for processing. The apples are processed intojuices (clear, cloudy, pureed, concentrated), cider, flavouring components,mousse, purees, dried, freeze dried (lyophilized apples) and frozen peeledapples.
Theprocessing operations not only brings value addition but can generate a lot ofemployment potential to the economy. There is a need to raise the processingindustry by means of start-ups and investments made into these sectors to alevel where at least half of the production is utilized to develop these valueadded products. Value addition through processing is also one of the waysKashmir’s economy can contribute to doubling farmers income. One majorhindrance in the processing of apples is maintaining the availabilitythroughout the year. Storage capacity has been in deficiency despite theefforts put by various governments in recent times to develop cold storagefacilities. A strong apple economy needs to be backed by a robust storageinfrastructure. Around one third of the produce is not utilised due to postharvest losses owing to lack of adequate storage facility. Poland whichproduced about 2.5 million metric tonnes of apple last year has a cold storagecapacity of 1.5 million tonnes while Turkey which is the 3rd largest appleproducer has a storage capacity of 1 million metric tonnes for a averageproduction of 3 million metric tonnes. Kashmir with a storage capacity of 0.1million tonnes is far from even being closer having only 5% storage capacity ascompared to 50% for Poland and 33% for turkey. The cold storage infrastructurefurther needs to be expanded. Facilities need to be adapted in utilising thecontrolled atmospheric (CA) conditions. Apples are stored under a standard CA(Oxygen concentration of 2-3% , CO2 from 2-5%). New cold storage warehousesneed to be developed based on modern low oxygen technologies (eg ILOS, DCA,DCS, swinglos, ACTR etc) augmented with suitable post harvest treatment suchas 1 Methyl Cyclo propane (1-MCP) whichenables the harvest to be stored for a period of upto 12 months whilemaintaining their high quality. Such practices could always come handy even inthese unprecedented COVID times where you need to store your harvest for alonger duration for inability to access transportation and avoid losses. Appleindustry by integrating these techno-economic solutions in processing andstorage can bloom further and bring in the much needed pink revolution in theregion.
Shafat Ahmad Khan is Assistant Professor, Department of Food technology IUST Awantipora, J&K