From Paddy to Plaza: A Dangerous Drift

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07 May 2026

Kashmir cannot build prosperity by burying the land that feeds, protects and sustains it

There is a dangerous silence settling over Kashmir’s vanishing farmlands. It is the silence of paddy fields erased by shopping complexes, of orchards pushed into spaces where food crops once grew, of wetlands choked by unplanned commercial expansion, and of a society mistaking land conversion for development. What is being celebrated as a commercial boom is, in truth, a slow ecological and economic unravelling. The Valley’s agricultural landscape is not merely shrinking; it is being structurally altered. Official figures cited in recent reports show paddy area falling from about 1.41 lakh hectares in 2020 to nearly 1.30 lakh hectares in 2025, indicating a loss of over 11,000 hectares in five years. The argument often offered in defence is familiar: horticulture yields more, commercial estates generate wealth, urban growth is inevitable. But such reasoning is dangerously incomplete. Horticulture is undeniably important to Jammu and Kashmir’s economy, and recent surveys note an expansion in total horticulture area to about 3.44 lakh hectares in 2024–25. Yet the core question is not whether horticulture matters. It does. The question is whether fertile agricultural land should be surrendered indiscriminately to markets, malls, colonies and speculative real estate. The consequences are already visible. As paddy land declines, Kashmir is becoming increasingly dependent on rice supplies from outside. Recent analyses have directly linked shrinking farmland and conversion into residential and commercial structures with growing dependence on external food supply chains. A Valley that once took pride in its agrarian resilience now risks becoming vulnerable to price shocks, transport disruptions and policy decisions. Then comes the environmental cost. Agricultural fields and wetland fringes are not empty spaces waiting for concrete; they are natural sponges, flood buffers and groundwater recharge zones. Their destruction weakens Kashmir’s ecological shield and deepens flood risk. Add to this the rise of unplanned peri-urban growth, habitat loss, chemical-intensive orchard expansion, and growing social inequality as farmers trade long-term livelihood security for one-time land sales, and the picture becomes even darker. Kashmir needs development, but not this reckless version of it. A society that commercialises its best farmland without restraint is not planning for the future; it is consuming it. Land-use laws exist, but weak enforcement has made them little more than paper assurances. What is urgently needed is a Valley-wide protection policy for prime agricultural land, strict checks on commercial conversion, scientific urban planning, and a development model that does not pit economic aspiration against food security and ecological survival. If Kashmir loses its fields, it will lose much more than grain. It will lose balance, protection, memory and self-reliance. That would be too high a price to pay for a boom built on the ruins of the soil.