Irrigation by snow

Declining rain and snowfall make farmers collect snow from higher altitudes to water their apple crops

- ROHIT PRASHAR

I CALL it white manure," says Suresh Boris, a young farmer from Sunnam village in Himachal Pradesh's Ropa valley. "Every few days since December 2024, I have been taking workers with me to high hills on the Himalayas for collecting snow. I transport the snow in a truck to my village and use it as a source of moisture for my apple plants, especially the young ones that are more vulnerable," he says. "I cover the soil around the plant's stem with the snow. It also provides the plant some nutrition, just like manure," says the farmer from Kinnaur district.

Most people in Kinnaur practice horticulture and depend on glacial meltwater, rain and snowfall for irrigation. But the district has faced acute shortage of rain and snowfall this season. India Meteorological Department's (IMD'S) Kalpa weather station in Kinnaur has recorded only 15.1 mm of rain till mid-February this year. This is 91 per cent less than normal of 165.7 mm for January-February. Even in October-December last year, Kinnaur received 41 per cent less than normal rain.