Farmers in Gurez store their harvests underground to last the Himalayan winter. As the practice fades, local varieties and handed-down skills are disappearing tooHajra Begum rolls a potato in her hands, checking its skin for cuts, soft spots and signs of rot. After a day harvesting in her family’s field in Chorwan, a remote mountain village in Gurez, Indian-administered Kashmir, she is sorting the crop for winter storage. Some of the potatoes will feed her family through the cold months; others will be saved for planting in spring.’It should be perfect for planting,’ she says. ‘If you keep a bad potato, you will waste the whole next year.’ Continue reading…