Kashmir's Sikkim Dream

Despite clean produce, willing farmers, and a 500 crore fund, Kashmir's organic push lacks one vital ingredient: political will.

- Fiza Masoodi

The sun was still climbing over the ridges of Gurez when I stepped onto a potato field, soft with dew and dark with life.

A farmer knelt beside me, his fingers moving through the soil like someone reading an old, familiar story. He didn't say much, but his silence carried the same confidence I'd once heard in the voice of Nazir Ahmad Gurezi, a senior lawmaker who stood here in 2017 and declared that Gurez could be Kashmir's organic capital.

“This place has everything it needs,” Nazir had said then. And he wasn't wrong.

There's something unspoiled about Gurez. The land is high, the air is sharp, and the soil—untouched by years of chemicals—is ready. Nazir’s dream was to grow clean food here: peas, potatoes, and promise.

And now, across Kashmir, from Pulwama's modest plots to the apple-heavy orchards of Baramulla, that dream is beginning to stir.

But dreaming is easy. Building takes more. And that is where, the far northeast Sikkim is showing the way.

In 2003, Pawan Kumar Chamling, then chief minister, did something few politicians ever dare. He banned chemical pesticides. Slowly, methodically, Sikkim walked toward purity. Officers trained farmers. Compost pits multiplied. Fields were watched, nurtured, kept clean. By 2015, all of Sikkim's 66,000 farming families were organic.

“We didn't just grow food,” said Prem Das Rai, a former Sikkim MP. “We built a way of life.”

The land responded. Soil grew softer. Streams ran clearer. Bees returned, and cardamom yields rose. Sikkim’s farmers earned more, because clean food fetches clean money. Tourists came in droves, chasing mountain air and pesticide-free meals. Schools taught children how to farm without poison. The world noticed. In 2018, the UN gave Sikkim its highest prize for environmental policy.