Mountain/Rural Market Economy

Northern Areas is famous for delicious apricots varieties but hygienic and clean dried apricot is still an issue because the farmers dry their apricots through conventional methods.
Usually this is done on the roofs of houses if houses are near to the orchards. Farmers usually build a sort of porch somewhere around the orchard where the apricots are turned into halves by cut opening apricots; separating the inside kernels and lying the halves of the apricot on the shaqs a Round traditional slab sort of thing made weaving think flexible twigs of some special tree called Shask in wakhi and this tree is planted specially for this weaving purpose. Baskets are also made from this tree). This method is very laborious and very time consuming. Women for hours sit and do this job. Some times the halves of apricots are put on stones to dry in sun. Similarly some people even use plastic and clothe sheets to get the apricots halves dried in the sun. Apricots dried this way are not acceptable in the market, because being remained in open air for several days (at least three days for one batch and may be a week in bad weather or may be more) they are dusty and unhygienic (its not possible for the farmers to protect whole the area of drying from flies)


By the AKRSP’s introduced method, instead of opening the apricots into halves, the apricots are dried as whole but without the kernel inside. The kernel is taken out through a small hole in the apricot. Rest of the drying method is the same. The wholes of the apricots take even more time; more than double of what it takes to dry the halves

Sun Drying and Quality

1. Sun drying requires a lot of time (7-15 days) during which time there is terrible wastage of fresh fruit.
2. Sun drying is very labour intensive for an individual who is already stretched by the peak harvest season. This means that farmers can not give full attention to the quality of the apricots that they produce. Increases in the scale of the business will only worsen the problem.
3. Sudden rains can destroy days of hard work, as fruit quality is severely affected. Even if it rains during the day, and the fruit is covered, the high level of humidity under plastic sheets causes damage. This takes the form of white specs which are believed to be fungal colonies or the damage caused by their mycelium.
4. The trend for farmers to sell their apricots fresh for sale down country is developing.
5. Very high levels of sunlight at the wrong stage of drying can also be damaging to the appearance of the finished product, as moisture can not escape quickly enough from the surface of the fruit and the fruit skin detaches from the main fruit surface.


A cost effective, method of drying apricots is being developed at village level by installing drying tunnels with the financial support on matching grant basis from Agribusiness Support Fund, Lahore. AKRSP under the financial support of ASF has formed 49 Farmer Enterprise Groups in Northern Areas and Chitral engaged in Apricot drying through Turkish method. (AKRSP-ASF / FEGs Database-11/03/2009)
After installation of drying tunnels the following milestones would be achieved.

• Drying times of 2 days could apparently be achieved which would mean a much greater through put and tray usage during the season.
• The problem of damage caused by rain and excess sunlight would be removed.
• Exclusion of dust and other external factors would be achieved, reducing washing requirements at the factory, and producing a more uniform product of higher quality.
• Further, if the FEG wishes to move to an organic system of production, the use of potassium metabisulphate to sterilise the product after washing would not be allowed. Therefore it would be preferable to reduce the microbiological load before reaching the processing centre by not exposing the product to the elements during drying.