Saffron dying a slow death in Kashmir

Meer Manzar

Srinagar, Nov 12, 2020: Saffron crop also known as the red gold of Kashmir, mostly grown in Pulwama and Budgam districts of Jammu and Kashmir union territory, is losing its sheen year by year. The Saffron crop is shrinking, so are the hopes of its growers who are either switching to the plantation of walnut and apple trees in their fields or already switched to other sources of livelihood, abandoning their land.

Pampore area of district Pulwama also known as “saffron capital” that is barely 20 -minutes drive from Jammu and Kashmiri’s summer capital Srinagar is home to scores of families who are engaged and entirely dependent on saffron crop [crocus flower] planted over thousands of hectares. The farmers are not seeing any hope from the crop now as it’s production is declining sharply.

Due to climate change, there was negligible rainfall this year which affected the crop badly, said Ghulam Mohiudin dar, a 54-year-old saffron grower.

Dry weather has damaged the crop this year adding miseries to farmers who are dependent on this crop, the farmers who were already suffering due to low production of saffron are still yet to see any hope from its production.

The continuing dry spell in the valley has adversely affected saffron production, besides the poor irrigation facilities are affecting the crop more as everyone is aware that these saffron fields require moisture. We have had a hope that this year there will be an increase in the production of crop but that didn’t happen due to less amount of rainfall this year, which further created more problems to us “said Nisar Hussain, a 43-year-old farmer.

The government had started irrigation facilities in many saffron growing areas and ours was one of them and they set up water pumps to provide water to farmers for their fields, but that also didn’t help us, the scheme was totally failed as they were not able to provide that much of water and most of the times they were not working properly “said another farmer.

In 2007 to address the challenges of saffron growers the government of Jammu and Kashmir set up a National saffron mission to restore the sector. The goal of NSM was to provide irrigation facilities through sprinklers and taps, to increase the quality of the crop and enhance the productivity and educate farmers about new technologies about farming, but that also didn’t help the farmers and doesn’t help in producing more quantity of saffron.

We are now shifting to other crops as I don’t see any future in it The rates in the market are also less. We were thinking that due to less amount of saffron cultivation there will be good rates in the market but the rates are the same for several years, that didn’t help us to provide wages to our labors “said Suhail Ahmad whose family have been farming saffron from decades. ”I used to love to come to fields because of the bloom of saffron flowers, but now I even don’t want to see the fields due to declining quantity of the crop”.