Srinagar: The waiver of duty on imported apples under the India-US Free Trade Agreement has thrown the domestic horticulture industry into a disarray with farmers and industry leaders in Jammu and Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh apprehending major losses in coming years.Opposition parties, industry experts and traders fear that cheap US apples will flood the Indian markets in coming weeks and months following the import duty waiver, which will lower the prices of apples from Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand. The India-US agreement has reduced the existing 50% import duty on apples to 25% with a limited quota and a minimum import price (MIP) of Rs 80 per kg, which would protect the domestic apple growers according to the Union commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal.Contradicting the minister, Harish Chauhan, convenor of Sanyukt Kisan Manch (SKM) Himachal Pradesh, an influential conglomerate of 27 outfits that fights for farmers’ interests, said that the reduction of import duty will cause huge loss of revenue for the government. “The MIP is recommended by the ministry and notified by the director general of foreign trade but it is never implemented on the ground. The US apples have never been priced at less than Rs 75 in India. Lessening the import duty will not only lead to revenue loss for the government but it will also impact our farmers and domestic horticulture industry very badly.” Chauhan, who is also the convenor of Hill State Horticulture Forum of J&K and Himachal Pradesh, added: “It is like arming Indian farmers with the British-era guns and asking them fight the US army which has modern weapons”.Speaking in the J&K assembly on Monday, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader M.Y. Tarigami said that the trade agreement will adversely impact the country’s horticulture sector.“In the absence of a legally guaranteed MSP, farmers are left with mere assurances that have not been implemented on the ground. This trade agreement will prove to be a major blow not only to the national economy but also to the economy of Jammu and Kashmir in particular,” he said.Apple imports over the yearsIndia is the seventh largest producer of apples globally and a major consumer of apples with an annual demand of around 25 lakh metric tonnes, Union minister Goyal said, adding that the country produces 20-21 lakh metric tonnes.Of this, about 80% is grown in the orchards of J&K while the remaining comes from Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand. Chauhan said that the deficit of four to five lakh metric tonnes is procured from some 44 countries depending on the need.India imported about 1.05 lakh metric tonnes of apples from the US in 2015 which increased to 1.47 lakh tonnes in 2018. In 2019, after the US increased duty on steel and aluminium, India retaliated by increasing import duty from 50% to 70%, which led to a decline in the US apple imports to around 5,000 metric tonnes in 2022 and around 7,000 metric tonnes in 2023. Chauhan said that the Union government rolled back the retaliatory import duty on apples when US president Joe Biden visited India in 2023. This led to an increase in the US apple imports to around 37,000 tonnes in 2024 and around 60,000 tonnes in 2025. “Now we are back to the 2018 situation when India recorded the highest apple imports from the US. Today, the US apples cost around Rs 143 per kg including the import duty of 50%. Now, when it will cost only around Rs 100 including the import duty, our farmers will find the competition difficult,” said Chauhan. He added that the other imported varieties of apples sell at lesser price than the US apples in Delhi’s Azadpur Mandi, “Iranian apples sell for Rs 60 in Azadpur Mandi,” he said.Chauhan fears that once the new tariff regime comes into effect, the Indian markets will be flooded by the US apples which, even though less nutritious than the apples from J&K and Himachal, are sought more by the consumers.“Indian consumers are more attracted to the appearance of fruits than their nutritious value. Low price of US apples will translate into a decrease in price of local apples,” he said. Despite assurances from minister Goyal, the apple farmers and other industry stakeholders in Himachal Pradesh are gearing up for a nationwide stir over the issue. ‘Livelihood of thousands at risk’However, the trade bodies in Kashmir are adopting a cautious approach, fearing reprisals from the government and security agencies. A senior trade leader based in north Kashmir said they are “watching the ongoing situation” in Himachal but have decided to stay away from the agitation, “The situation is not good as you are aware. Even reaching out to the farmers can land us in trouble”.However, the opposition People’s Democratic Party (PDP) has accused the Union government of putting the apple farmers in Kashmir in a lurch while the Awami Ittehad Party (AIP) said that the US-India agreement would “destroy the backbone” of Kashmir’s horticulture economy.In a letter to the prime minister Narendra Modi on February 7 (Saturday), Basheer Ahmad Basheer, president of Kashmir’s largest association of apple growers and traders, said that the tariff waiver would create more difficulties for the valley’s horticulture sector.“The imported varieties of the US apples would cheaper and a trader would naturally prefer them over apples from Kashmir or other states. It will impact our farmers badly,” Basheer wrote.The letter by Basheer, who is chairman of Kashmir Valley Fruit Growers Cum Dealers Union, notes that more than seven lakh families were directly or indirectly associated with the horticulture sector in Kashmir. “We have been seeking a 100% tariff on imported apples in the interest of the horticulture industry in general, and fruit growers of the valley in particular, but the trade agreement has put the livelihood of hundreds of thousands of people at risk,” Basheer told The Wire. ”Sometimes apples are imported from Iran and sometimes from the United States and other countries as well. These steps constantly put pressure on our local apple industry. The cumulative impact of such imports have been damaging local apple growers, particularly small and marginal growers who are already struggling with input costs, erratic weather, pest attacks and transport issues,” the letter states.‘Surrender to MNCs’Javid Tenga, president of Kashmir Chamber of Commerce and Industry, claimed that the new trade agreement will protect the horticulture industry of Kashmir. “The minister (Goyal) has announced that the import of US apples will be governed by an MIP to protect the industry from predatory pricing and other factors,” he said.However, the country’s farmers and the opposition parties have termed the agreement as “a surrender to multinational agricultural giants” and “attack on the sovereignty” of India. PDP leader and former J&K minister Naeem Akhtar said that the trade deal would push the horticulture sector which contributes around 8% to J&K’s Gross State Domestic Product into “hard times”. “Apples from all over the world, not just the US, will flood Indian markets. Kashmir will have to come up with a response as this situation is irreversible,” he said. PDP spokesman Mohammad Iqbal Trumboo told reporters in Jammu on Sunday that the Union government had considered the implications of the deal for J&K’s horticulture sector, “There will be zero tariff on agriculture products imported from the US. What will happen to the apple and walnut produced in Jammu and Kashmir?”In a post targeting the chief minister Omar Abdullah-led government on X, AIP leader Abrar Rashid said, “US India trade deal is all set to destroy Kashmir’s backbone ‘The Apple Industry’. But our CM Omar Sahab was first to welcome the US India trade deal. A day later, Omar Sahab was sitting next to Home Minister Amit Shah to highlight Modi government’s achievements in J&K. Around the same time, Farooq Sahab was busy singing Bhajans in Jammu. But everybody except Farooq Sahab and Omar Sahab is BJP’s B team and a proxy of [the] RSS”.