Muzamil Bhat

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“If
we had been informed about the snowfall in advance, we would have hurried up
with the harvesting,” says Mushtaq Ahmad. Ahmad
lives in Nambal Bal village of Pampore block in south Kashmir. Here, around mid-May every year, he
and other farmers plant the Crocus sativus –
the 'saffron crocus'. And from
around mid-October to mid-November, they harvest the flower. Its crimson
portions (the flower’s stigma and styles) become the popular and high-cost kesar.Kashmir is the only state (now union territory) in India that grows saffron. Some of it is brewed in the local kahwa tea, while most of it is sent to other states in the country, where it is mainly used in food preparations, in ayurvedic medicines and in temple rituals.  But this year, Kashmir received its first snowfall nearly a month early
– on November 7. That affected the flowering plants.  As a result, Waseem
Khanday of Maij village in
Pampore harvested only 30-40 grams of saffron – instead of the 250-300 grams
he was expecting – per kanal on his 60 kanals of land. And instead of an
estimated Rs. 20,000 profit per kanal (8 kanals
equal 1 acre), he is now facing a loss of more than Rs. 3 lakhs.“We
had high hopes this season, but untimely snow damaged our crop,” says Abdul
Majeed Wani, president, J&amp;K
Saffron Growers Association, which has around 2,000 members. Wani estimates that the total loss to Kashmir's saffron farmers this year will be roughly Rs. 20 crores. The saffron trade is valued at Rs. 200 crores, said Dr. Zainul Abidin, president, Kashmir Chamber of Food Processing Industries, at a recent press conference.Ahmad’s
and Khanday’s villages are among the 226 villages in Jammu and Kashmir where some
32,000 families cultivate saffron, notes a document prepared by the divisional
commissioner of Kashmir. Many of these are in the Pampore region of Pulwama district. Together, they produce around 17 tons of saffron every year, says Syed Altaf Aijaz Andrabi, the director of agriculture.

But over the years, the land
on which this cash crop is cultivated in Kashmir has reduced from more than 5,700
hectares to around 3,700 hectares. Farmers here speak of changing rainfall
patterns (either less than normal rain in the monsoon months of
August-September, or untimely rain) and poor irrigation as some of the reasons
for the shrinking acreage.

Some
of them say that even the National
Saffron Mission, introduced in 2010, has not helped much. The
Mission’s many aims included improving production systems, augmenting research
and marketing, providing sprinklers and borewells, and introducing better
quality seeds. “But the results are not visible. There are complaints by many
farmers that a lot of money was misused…” says Ghulam Mohammad Bhat, who owns seven
kanals
in the Drangah Bal area of Pampore block in Pulwama district.

“The
new saffron seeds provided by the local agriculture officers has not brought good results, though they claimed it will increase the yield,” says Abdul Ahad
Mir. Like the other saffron growers in Kashmir, he too is trying to absorb the
losses of this year’s poor crop.

But an early snowfall is not the only reason for the poor
harvest. The political uncertainty and
restrictions that followed the abrogation of Article 370 by the central
government on August 5 also hit the crop. “Due to the restrictions we could not
reach our fields and tend to the bulbs that were ready to sprout,” says Aijaz
Ahmad Bhat, another saffron grower from the Drangah Bal area.

The
post-August departure of large numbers of migrant labourers who seasonally come to Kashmir
seeking work also affected the crop, forcing saffron farmers to hire local
labourers at much higher daily wages, says Bashir Ahmad Bhat, a saffron grower
from Zafran Colony of
Pampore. “It is not a profit-making business anymore,” he adds.

The
internet shutdown also pushed up the losses. “Our children used to regularly
check the weather forecast on the internet,” says Mushtaq Ahmad. In the past, recalls Waseem Khanday, “We could
tell when it would rain or snow by looking at the clouds. But we got so
dependent on the internet that we stopped noticing the changes in weather.”

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In Pulwama, a different shade of saffron

પુલવામાનો અલગ કેસરિયો

পুলওয়ামায় জাফরানের ম্লান আভা

புல்வாமாவில் வித்தியாசமான காவி

পুলৱামাৰ কুংকুমৰ খেতিত ক’লীয়া ডাঁৱৰ

ପୁଲ୍‌ୱାମାରେ କେଶରର ରଙ୍ଗ ଭିନ୍ନ

पुलवामा: बर्फ़बारी व लॉकडाउन के चलते केसर की खेती को भारी नुक़्सान

پلوامہ میں، زعفران کے الگ رنگ

पुलवामातल्या केशराचा विरता रंग

Pulwama

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In Pulwama, a different shade of saffron

Saffron farmers in Kashmir are facing a bleak season – an early snowfall, the restrictions imposed after Article 370 was scrapped and a shortage of labourers have hit a trade already in a slump for years

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