Outsiders exploiting orchard owners in Chitral
CHITRAL, Aug 16: Traders from outside Chitral are swarming the distant valleys of Chitral to purchase dry fruits. But the local people complained that despite the rampant unemployment in the district, not a single local person had embarked upon the business. Haji Yaqub of Kosht said that the villages of upper valley of Chitral produce a huge amount of while mulberry and apricot which are dehydrated in almost every household. He said that the bumper product this year has attracted a large number of traders to the villages who go door to door to collect the dried fruits but conspicuously no local person can be seen doing the same job. “The young people from Muhmand, Bajaur, Charsadda, Mardan and Dir come to the valley every year and earned a good dividend in the business but the locals feel shy to do it at doorsteps,” he said. Himself a shop keeper, Mr.Yaqub said that the local people sell their dried fruit items to the non-local mobile purchasers at throw away prices because they do not bother to take it to the market. “Many unemployed youth purchase commodities of personal use including cigarette, bathing soap, shampoo and many more from my shop on credit but they do not bend to earn by embarking upon the business”, he lamented. Masood Ahmed, working in the enterprises development section of a NGO, said that as part of his job, he failed to bring round the Chitral youth to initiate such small enterprises as they seek white collared jobs. He said that there was a good margin of profit in the business of dried fruit collection but unfortunately the local youth feared that this blow their dignity it he wanders from door to door with a sack and balance collecting it. “I knew many organizations which offered loans on interest free basis to the youth to initiate such business but no one availed it on the terms”, he said. He said that as per survey conducted by his organization some years ago, no a single person was engaged in the business which described a pathetic state of their attitude towards self-employment. When Jaffar Gul, a resident of Muhamand Agency was contacted by this scribe in Sonoghur village with a large gunny bag hanging over his shoulder, he said that it was his third year that he came to upper Chitral with a group of his friends. “I spend three months here and earned quite a handsome amount of money which I spend in my business in Mardan where I run a whole sale of crockery”, he said.–Zahiruddin]]>
It is the problem of the entire Chitral, we have limited production of every vegetable and fruit but no one of us is taking it a full time business. Many of our brothers have opened retails shops but they do not bother to go to fields for purchase of vegetable and fruits, if any one go to their shop with their produced fruits and vegetables they bought it but at minimum price. it is has often seen that the Pathan bahai go door to door and bought vegetables and fruit s and sold it to these shopkeepers with a good margins.
This year I have had a bumper crop of high quality apricots and I was helpless to manage the crop, thank to a Pathan bahi he come to me and picked my apricot @ 08 PKR per KG. some days after I went to down county and I saw apricots at markets of Dir, Swat, Peshawar and Islamabad and Lahore and the rates were in the range of 180 to 260 PKR per Kg but the size, quality and taste of the apricots were lower than what we produced and sold at @08 rupees per kg.
Cooperative farming is the only solution for this problem. We should handover all the orchards to one person at village level and he should take care of production and marketing. The responsible person will distribute the profit after completion of season.