The Hill States Horticulture Forum (HSHF) has expressed serious concerns over the potential impact of ongoing and proposed Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) on India’s apple sector, warning that tariff concessions on imports could destabilize hill-state horticulture economies.

A high-level delegation, led by Harish Chouhan and including Maajid A. Wafai, Bashir Ahmad Naik, Izhan Javeed, Irshad A. Bhat, and Sunil Aggarwal, met Union Agriculture Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan to convey the concerns of apple growers from Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, and Uttarakhand.
The delegation emphasized that apple cultivation sustains lakhs of families and supports allied sectors like labour, transport, cold storage, packaging, and local trade. They cautioned that reducing the existing 50% customs duty—through FTAs with countries like New Zealand, the EU, the US, and Chile—could disadvantage domestic producers, who lack the subsidies and mechanization enjoyed by foreign exporters.
“The proposal to allow apple imports starting from March will severely damage the cold-storage infrastructure built over decades across hill states,” the Forum warned, noting that early-season imports could depress domestic prices and harm every vertical of the horticulture economy.
Key requests made to the Union Agriculture Ministry included: reviewing import duty reductions within FTA quotas, conducting a socio-economic impact assessment of FTAs, enforcing safeguards to prevent market flooding, engaging farmers in trade negotiations, and revising the reference price of imported apples from ₹50 to ₹90 to prevent under-invoicing.
The delegation noted that the Union Agriculture Minister assured them that the interests of India’s farmers would be protected, giving confidence that the horticulture sector’s concerns will be addressed at the highest levels.