By Zahiruddin
CHITRAL: In a dried fruit shop in Chitral bazaar, one can have only walnut and jalghuza and all other items are those which are transported here from Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) or from Afghanistan through Quetta which included apricot, fig, mulberry and almond which are grown in fabulous quantity locally but are not processed and preserved for marketing.
Samad Khan, a dry-fruit merchant in Shahi Bazaar, told Chitral Times that the dried apricot and mulberry is brought here from GB despite the fact that both these are grown in high quantity in Chitral whose superfluous quantity is fed to the animals during the season.
He said that both wild and grafted species of figs have a galore in central and lower Chitral where it ripens two to three times in a year and all it goes waste and no one collects and processed it for earning while it is an irony that hundred percent figs are brought from Afghanistan and the local people purchase it at as high rate as Rs.600 per kg.
He said that almonds are grown in lower Chitral where wild species grows naturally in the mountainous terrains and steppes but no one bothers to collect the seeds to sell in the market.
“The quality of the fruit was in no way inferior to that of GB or Afghanistan but here the people are yet to be organized and trained to enable them to process their superfluous fruits to augment their earnings”, he said adding that Chitral is far behind than its neighboring GB in this field.
He said that until recently, only local product of walnuts were sold in the local market but now the Chinese walnuts have also came to compete them which are larger in size and cheaper in price while the local farmers sold their products of high quality to the non-local traders visiting their villages well before ripening and get the prices in advance.
Bashir Hussain Azad, another local trader said that it is only jalghuza in the shop of dry fruit on which the shop keeper as the only local product and that too on cheaper price which a non-local cannot think of but some years, its supply runs short and its yield drops due to scanty rainfall.
He said that no proper dry shops used to be there in Chitral bazaar till 10 to 12 years ago exclusively dealing the commodity and offering the best processed items transporting from GB and Afghanistan and those starting the business were also non-locals.
He said that the local farmers needed to be sensitized on the matter making them conscious to the fact that if the fruits of apricot, mulberry and figs are saved and preserved, then it will bring a large sum of dividend to them which they presently wasted.
Mr. Azad said that the with the availability of electricity from the Golen Gol hydro power station commissioned to work in February this year, the process of dehydration and packaging has become possible and now dehydration and processing units can be established in every village on the pattern on GB.
He said that the fruits dried in customary way by exposing to direct sunlight, lost their pleasant charm, taste and brittleness and such commodity finds no place in the market.
Of late, the Aga Khan Rural Support Programme (AKRSP) had introduced manufacture of jam and pickle out of the fresh fruits and it is inspiring to note that the women folk was being engaged in the process and it may take some time to make the local products available in the market.
