Plum growers in Peshawar are grappling with catastrophic losses after an unseasonal April heatwave ravaged orchards, decimating nearly 90% of the fruit crop.
The extreme temperatures, compounded by erratic rains and hailstorms, have left farmers in despair, with many forced to abandon their generational livelihood.
According to plum growers in the provincial metropolis, the loss to orchards was very heavy as around 90 percent of the fruit was damaged mostly due to unusual rise in temperature, erratic rains and hail storms. Orchard owners in plum growing belt of Peshawar, starting from Urmar area to Surezai area on Kohat road, informed APP that this year the losses were very heavy, leaving them in state of disappointment.
“Last year I sold around 3500 cartons, weighing around six to seven kg of plum, from my orchard, while this year the production was very less around 95 cartons,” informed Muhammad Haroon a plum grower in Urmar area.
Talking to APP, Haroon said plum growing is his family business and losses they faced this year were exceptional, breaking all previous records besides forcing the growers to opt for some other source of earning.
About the financial losses, Haroon informed that the approximate earning through last year’s yield was around Rs. 2.8 million at the rate of Rs. 800 per carton.
Whereas this year the earning was just Rs. 76000 in accordance with the value of Rs. 800 per carton, Haroon shared. More than Rs. 100,000 was spent on his on use of pesticides and levelling of soil.
Farmers losses has also affected the labour class on collect plums from tree and pack in cartons on daily wage earning, Haroon added.
He said every year he engaged more than one dozen labourers in his orchard especially at time of harvest of the fruit, but this year only one labour was involved just for a couple of days.
The losses are enormous because almost 95 percent of fruit is wasted during germination of flower in April, observed Zakaria, another owner of plum fruit orchard in Urmar area.
Zakaria’s losses were more sever than Haroon whose last year orchard yield was more than 5000 cartons which shrank to less than 100 in the current year.
According to Zakria’s understanding about reasons of damage was sudden and abnormal heat in April, restricting the plum flower from blossoming.