Kashmir's Click-to-Crate Apples

A tech shift is underway in Kashmir's apple belt, where young growers armed with smartphones are bypassing middlemen, reshaping tradition, and bringing the mountain fruit to mainland.

- Dr. Waseem Ahmad

Last harvest, in a narrow lane of Shopian's Sedow village, past rows of rusted tractors and crates piled high with fruit, 28-year-old Adil Nazir crouched beneath an apple tree with a phone in hand. He was not checking the weather. He was editing a reel.

The clip shows red Kullu apples hanging low on branches, a drone shot of a misty orchard, and Adil waving from the truck bed. His caption is simple: "Fresh from Sedow. DM to buy."

In less than an hour, the post reached 3,000 people, most of them outside Kashmir.

This is what apple farming looks like now in the valley. A tech transformation, driven not by policy or market reform, but by social media and young growers refusing to follow the old script.

"In my father's time, we waited for commission agents," Adil says. "They'd come, quote a price, take half the profit. We had no say. Now I'm selling my apples directly to homes in Delhi and Mumbai."

Adil is part of a growing network of Kashmiri orchardists using phones not just to share updates but to reshape the way they grow, sell, and survive.

The region produces nearly three-fourths of India's apples, yet its farmers have long struggled with price manipulation, unpredictable weather, and government neglect.

That struggle has moved online.