Pakistan

Mountain Fruits

In 1997 Tropical Wholefoods began work with The Agah Khan Rural Support Programme (AKRSP) Dried Fruit Project (DFP). The AKRSP is a charitable foundation which works to improve the livelihood of people living in the higher areas of the Karakorum Mountains in the Northern Areas of Pakistan.

The pure highland environment of the Karakorum Mountains, where fruit is grown at between 4,500 - 9,500 feet during long summer days, fed by glacial meltwater, creates fruits with extraordinarily beautiful taste & flavour. The Hunza apricot is known the world over for its bright and tangy flavour, which is rich and full of complexity.

The farmers of the Northern Areas of Pakistan produce a variety of fruits: apricots, apples, cherries, mulberries, peaches, nuts including almonds, walnuts and pine nuts. Due to seasonal gluts in production most of this output is wasted as it rots before it can be consumed or marketed. Communities are extremely poor, living in some of the harshest environmental conditions known to man, with summer temperatures exceeding 40 degrees Celcius, winter temperatures below -10 degrees. Farming in these extremely arid conditions is made possible only with forced irrigation.

The AKRSP Dry Fruit Project, now known as Mountain Fruits (pvt) limited trains farmers in processing fresh fruit into valuable dried commodities that Tropical Wholefoods and other importers can sell. The methods used create a product of an international marketable standard, with greatly improved stability and food-safety compared with traditional drying techniques.

Mountain Fruits also train farmers in a variety of improved agricultural techniques that make increased production possible on the scarce land resources available to farmers. Finally the project seeks to find markets for all the agricultural products of the farmers, and thereby develop income streams to the poor communities from the sales of their improved products.

Tropical Wholefoods is an important partner for the project buying 60 tonnes of apricots a year as well as smaller quantities of apricot kernels, walnuts and apples. We are also advising on how to organise systems for product handling, quality assistance and export controls. We were able to provide technical assistance to Mountain Fruits when building their new factory and warehousing facilities in 2003.

Farmer cultivation methods are all non-intensive, with no use of chemicals, pesticides or fertilizers. Approximately 1500 farmers from 106 different village men and women organizations are involved in the production of dried apricots for the project. For more detail information visit the MF website.

The Mountain Fruits apricots are currently available under the Tropical Wholefoods label and Traidcraft label.

We hope to be able to purchase our first cep and morel mushrooms from Fruits of the Himalaya in September 2006.