Kulgam, July 16: Rayees Mushtaq, a BSc in Horticulture from SKUAST, has been providing relief to many orchardists of Kulgam and Shopain districts with his research and ability in the concerned field. He is currently pursuing MBA in Horticulture Business Management from the same varsity

Rayees, a resident of Nilow village on the outskirts of Kulgam town was destined to follow the path that had struck him at a very early age. It didn’t take long for him to be in the position of deciding future endeavours. Right after completing his professional degree he started working on his dream project and met numerous local orchardists and listened to their tales of working in an orchard.

On this Saturday morning, he was busy taking up calls from the orchardists asking him for prescriptions of apple plants amid the June fall of apples. Rayees said the scheduled plans for field visits in the coming days are almost full. People trust his abilities and knowledge which is bearing fruits for the orchardists in the twin districts.

“As you know horticulture is the backbone of Kashmir’s economy and as a horticulture graduate and technocrat, it’s my responsibility to modernise it and to make sure people make more profits from this sector, I use my knowledge in helping them,” Rayees told Rising Kashmir.

Working formerly with a company here as an agronomist helped Rayees a lot in understanding the apple disease and its cure. After completing his BSc in horticulture he was the first Kashmiri to set up an R.M Horti-Clinic with the tagline “we provide pesticides with prescription”. Rayees a known person in this field is trying to change the mindset of people who take orchards as a part-time job rather than a profession.

“I am working on a project where I will digitalise the horticulture sector in our Kashmir valley through which I will provide all technical guidance, services and Agri products at door steps of orchardists and for this project I have used my Horti clinic for test trail purpose and I have got a huge response from the growers. Moreover, the services I am providing to people are persuading more demand from the area and I will expand this on a larger scale next year. By the end of this season I am going to share success stories on my Facebook page also,” he said, adding that for this project I am getting good support from my universities.

“Kashmir has a tremendous potential to excel in the field of horticulture, we just need to shift our priorities from running at the rat race for getting a government job. We will surely become job givers by taking our orchards on a serious note,” he said. The quality production of apples and other fruits can boost the economy, Rayees believes.