Report reveals commercial banks give advances to commission agents, not apple farmers.
You may be cursing when you pay a high price for Kashmiri apples, wondering what share of the money orchard owners would receive. But in reality, the apple growers wouldn’t be even knowing the price at which the fruit is sold in the mainland, leave alone reaping profits.
Then, where does the money go? Into the pockets of commission agents, who, sitting in Delhi or any of the major cities, exploit and cheat the apple growers in Kashmir of crores of rupees every year. The apple growers live only in debt and distress, thanks to these agents.
The draft report of the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) on production and marketing of apple in Kashmir — a copy of it is exclusively available with DNA — blows the lid off this scam which is affecting the Rs 4,000 crore apple industry that kept the Valley alive even during the peak of militancy. The report will be submitted to the J&K government soon.
Exposing the role of commercial banks (mainly J&K Bank) in the scam, the report says they give advance to commission agents (CAs) instead of farmers. The CAs then lend the same money to apple growers at usurious rates. “In this way banks are (indirectly) contributing to survival of the old practice of ruthless, continued over-dependence of small growers of informal funding by agents,” says the report.
During 2011-12, apple growers in J&K got an advance of Rs1,200 crore (This excludes loans availed of under the ‘Apple Project’ of the J&K Bank) of which only Rs 200 crore was from banks. The amount funded by agents to the apple growers that year was Rs 1,024 crore, of which Rs 645 crore (63%) came from Delhi-based agents and Rs 207 crore (20%) from Kashmir-based CAs.
The report has also pulled up successive governments in the state for their failure to provide guidance on marketing and cold storage facilities to growers who produce 18 MT of apples. It says,“In the absence of proper financing mechanism, informal credit and output (apple) markets are interlocked in such a way that agents take undue advantage of the cash starved growers to make them captive supplier of apple.”
Except Narwal market in the Jammu division, no APMC market in the state has cold storage for fruits within its yard. Ghulam Nabi Malik, general secretary of the J&K Kisan Tehreek said, “There were some cold storages but they were destroyed either by militants or turned into store houses by the army.”
While giving advance at the start of the season, the agents bind the farmers to sell the produce through them. The agents promise the captive growers “lucrative and best possible” price, but later inform them over telephone that the produce has been sold with “great difficulty” due to “quality, size, grading, physical defects” in apple, says the report. The captive grower has no choice but to contend with that year after year.
Besides, the agents are charging commission from the apple growers in violation of the Agriculture Procedure Marketing Committee (APMC) Act. “...CA is allowed to charge commission from buyer (not seller) as per the Act. However, in practice it was generally observed that agent charges commission from sellers @ 6-12%. This practice has been continuing since 1950s when Delhi market was the sole direct destination of apple from Kashmir,” the report says.
Atta-ur-Rehman Natnoo, director of the state horticulture planning and marketing department, admitted that charging commission from the seller is against the law. “We are trying to make the law stricter, but there is resistance from the agents,” Natnoo said.
When the agents finally pay the orchard owners the proceeds of the sale, they deduct the advance, transportation cost and a commission of 12 %, leaving them in a state of distress.
DNA visited North and South Kashmir and spoke to several small apple growers who told similar stories of receiving lesser money than the market prize and living in debt. “We don’t know at what amount per petti (box) the agent in Delhi sells in market. Whatever they say we have to agree,” said Abdul Qayoom Bhatt of Biner village in Baramullah district who has a debt of Rs50,000 due to the low price he gets. Like Bhatt, lakhs of such poignant stories exist across the Valley.
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