Last Updated on June 8, 2022 at 4:53 pm
Jammu and Kashmir’s Gassu Batpora village, which is located on the outskirts of Srinagar city in Hazratbal tehsil village is famously known as the ‘Strawberry Village’ and harvesting of delicious and famous strawberries of Kashmir is growing with much satisfaction to the farmers. Despite of the hot weather conditions and delayed rainfall, farmers are getting much satisfied production.
Farmers fill their baskets with the freshly harvested strawberries, one of the first horticulture crops of the season in Kashmir.
Gaasu village is the home land of about one thousand farmers who are associated with the Strawberry trade and there are apple orchards as well which a source of their livelihood is. Women as well as children are engaged in the strawberry business in this village. Since there has been a rise in the tourist footfall this year farmers are expecting good returns.
Manzoor Ahmed, a strawberry grower told ANI that previous year harvest started around May 5 but this year as summer began early, harvest season started on April 18 and thanked god that the fruit is good and we are getting good rates as well.
He further added that due to rising tourist footfall there has been an increase in demand and many factory owners are also coming directly to buy strawberries for making juice or other products.
Abida, Horticulture Development Officer in the Shalimar area, said that strawberry is their first harvest crop and its harvesting is going on for the last one month and added that there are many pickings in this fruit and at present, third picking is going on.
Further added that due to early harvest as only this crop is available in the market at present they are getting good rates of it.
