TOBA TEK SINGH: Although the per acre yield of kinno orchards has been much less than the last year’s, farmers feel contented with its sale price.

Both farmers and kinno traders have been facing financial losses for the last three years because they were unable to sell the kinno at profitable price despite having a bumper yield.

Orchard owners and kinno traders held the government responsible for not taking any interest in exporting the fruit to the countries where Pakistani kinno was in great demand, eventually forcing them to sell it at throwaway prices in local markets.

This year orchard owners and traders were not only packing the kinno in crates but were also getting the fruit washed, polished and graded from factories to get maximum profit.

Ahmad Naeem Fateh, an orchard owner of Chak 305-GB, said this year the drought and untimely closure of canals for over a month had resulted in decline in the production, but farmers were still getting good profit.

“We are now sending the produce to Karachi, Quetta and Hyderabad while juice factories have also started their purchase, fearing that orchards will be emptied much early than expected due to less per acre yield,” he said.

A kinno trader, Muhammad Aslam, said trucks were readily available, because of low diesel and petrol prices, to supply kinno to fruit markets in Hyderabad, Karachi and Quetta at rates between Rs22,000 and Rs25,000 per truck.

He said the export to Malaysia and Arab countries was in progress and a crate containing 60 to 80 kinnos was being sold for Rs600 or more while a 100-piece crate for over Rs500.

Chaudhry Nisar Ahmad, Fruit and Vegetable Development Project deputy director, said the Toba district was second in producing kinno yield in the country after Sargodha.

He said the delay in the winter season had affected badly the maturity, taste and colour of the kinno, but still the farmers were getting handsome profit.

He said the kinno orchards had been cultivated in more than 45,000 acres in the Toba district.

Published in Dawn December 8th, 2016