Kashmir Magazine By : Kashmir Magazine | Srinagar, Publish Date: Monday, April 12, 2021 9:52:01 PM | Updated Date : Monday, April 12, 2021 9:52:01 PM
Stakeholders, including farmers and environmentalists, have strongly opposed the changes of farmland for residential purposes. They have also raised concerns on its socio-economic impact in rural as well as areas besides its effect on food security and environment. Rice is the staple food of most Kashmiris. Life without rice is deprivation. Rice has remained the “superstar” on the dining table here.
Prime agricultural lands have rapidly turned into subdivisions or malls and other commercial complexes; or for housing, while more people become dependent on import of rice to eat from other states. The Rapid land conversion is impacting jobs also in Srinagar. Rapid conversion of agriculture land in Srinagar to non-farm activities will drastically bring down a number of jobs in the primary sector in the next 15 years, a report prepared by the Town Planning Organization Kashmir says. It predicts that the fast transformation of land use in Srinagar district will reduce jobs like cultivators and agricultural labourers from the present 8 percent to 3 percent by 2035.
According to this official revelation, Kashmir had a total of 4, 67,700 hectares of agricultural land in 2015, which shrunk to 3, 89,000 hectares in 2019. A fresh agricultural census to assess the present scenario about the damage is underway these days and the results are expected to show a further decline of agricultural land due to the obvious reasons. According to some statistics, 2 lac, 83 thousand hectares of land area have expanded under horticulture. Urbanization, road network, and all other constructions have adversely affected the agricultural land so much that the average size of agricultural land in the valley has come down to the maximum reducible size.
The large scale conversion of agriculture land into non agricultural use shall create an imbalance in the ecosystem as the change in land pattern would be the greatest concern to our food security and economic sustainability in this part of temperate region, which otherwise has the potential to be world leader because of its unique identity in agricultural products.