Our story
Kashmir has grown apples for centuries. Highland Orchard is our attempt to grow them the modern way — carefully, transparently, and built to last.
Why we started
Highland Orchard started with two adjoining blocks of land near Pattan, in Baramulla district — apple country by any definition. The conviction was simple: the valley's next generation of orchards doesn't have to be planted the way the last generation's were.
Traditional Kashmiri orchards are beautiful, but they take a decade to reach full production, and their tall trees make consistent quality hard work. Modern high-density orchards — the kind now standard in Europe's best apple regions — fruit earlier, yield more per acre, and make every tree reachable, sprayable, and pickable. That is the orchard we are building.
The vision
Within the decade: a fully productive high-density orchard producing consistent, high-grade apples — fruit that can stand in any market on quality, with a paper trail behind every tree, from certified rootstock to harvest.
Just as important is how we get there. We are building infrastructure before planting trees, verifying planting material before trusting origin claims, and documenting the whole process publicly on this site. If we do this right, the orchard itself becomes the proof.
Why Kashmir, why now
The Kashmir Valley produces the large majority of India's apples. The altitude, the winters, the long summer light — the geography is simply right, and it has been for centuries.
What's changing is the method. Across the valley, growers are shifting from traditional seedling orchards to high-density plantations on dwarfing rootstock — earlier fruiting, better color, uniform size. The transition is where the opportunity lives: those who build modern systems carefully now, with proper water, proper material, and proper records, will define the valley's next chapter of quality.
Highland Orchard is a deliberate bet on that chapter — made respectfully, in a valley that taught the rest of the country what an apple should taste like.
The people
Shoueeb Dar — founder. Highland Orchard is a personal, hands-on project: land, planning, vendor negotiations, infrastructure decisions, and eventually the trees themselves.
As the team grows — orchard keeper, advisors, seasonal crew — they'll appear here. A farm is ultimately its people.
The road
