Timely snowfall useful for agriculture

The timely snowfall in Kashmir valley is seen by agriculture experts and people associated with trade and tourism as very useful. Director agriculture, Farooq Ahmad Lone, said the snowfall in January is a blessing for agriculture production. “This is a timely snowfall. The snow will remain longer in upper reaches and orchards. It will help to maintain sufficient moisture in fields and ultimately help to achieve a bumper crops,” he said.

The director also stated

that some parts of the Kashmir

valley were witnessing

a drought like situation for

the last couple of years.

“Various areas of Kashmir

were witnessing drought

like conditions for the last

couple of season. This will

maintain reasonable water

available in the orchards

and other agriculture fields.”

he said.

Lone maintained that

snowfall in the month of

January has always a

positive impact on production,

“This snowfall usually

remains for longer time. The temperature also falls drastically in December and January. The snowfall helps to maintain a reasonable amount of moisture in the fields. Once it remains for longer time, it will help better production and disease free production also,” he said.

The director agriculture said most encouraging thing for the department was that no reports of loss of orchards have witnessed so far. “Our initial reports indicate that there is no major loss to orchards,.” he said.

He also said there is a lot of difference between snowfall in December and January compared with snowfall in February and March. “The snowfall in December and January remains for longer time. This time, it falls in harsher part of winter (Chillai Kalan). It remains longer time and maintains reasonable moisture in fields. The snowfall in February and March is not much helpful for production as overall temperature increases in these months,” he said.

It is not only agriculture officials, who are jubilant with timely snowfall, the people associated with tourism are also delighted to witness snowfall in January.

“The adventure tourist lovers were eagerly waiting such kind of snowfall. The skiing needs at least few feets of snow. A reasonable snow has fallen in Gulmarg. Which is enough to conduct series of ski related adventure tourism activities,” said an official of tourism department from Gulmarg.

The official also said the snowfall will help to conduct different programmes scheduled by department in this season. “The show festival and other winter related activities are on pipeline for the department. The snowfall will definitely help to conduct these activities and encourage tourists to visit Kashmir in large numbers,” he said. A large number of national and international tourists are likely to arrive in Gulmarg. “The snowfall will not only encourage the tourists to come Gulmarg, it will motivate them to stay longer in Gulmarg. Snow is the identity of winter tourism in Kashmir.,” the official said.

A reasonable number of tourists have already arrived Gulmarg and Srinagar to enjoy natural beauty of Kashmir in winter also. The hoteliers at Gulmarg and Srinagar are expecting that the occupancy in their hotels will double after the snowfall. “The tourists like snowfall. When there is abundance snowfall. They come in large numbers. We are hopeful, there would be 100 percent occupancy in days to come,” the hoteliers believe