PAMPORE, INDIAN-ADMINISTERED KASHMIR – Humaira Akther and her family have been in the saffron business for generations. Their home and farm in Pampore sit alongside the Srinagar-Jammu national highway, just 9 miles from the city center.
“Our family has been involved with saffron cultivation since ages,” she says. But in Kashmir, one of the leading worldwide producers of saffron, the industry is struggling. Local youth want out of the family business; a lack of infrastructure and irrigation has decreased production; and unpredictable rainfall has depressed crops. Kashmiri saffron is not the commodity it once was.
“I assist my parents in the fields, but I have my own dreams,” Akther says, agreeing that many young people do not want to stay in the family saffron business. “I want to pursue my career in teaching.”
Akther did well in school and recently graduated with a degree in science. She says she does not want to spend her days plucking saffron flowers and sifting red carpels from yellow stamens and purple petals for the rest of her life.
Many say local youth are de-motivated about saffron because there is less money in the trade than in previous years. Akther says 10 grams of saffron sold for about 1,000 rupees, or $22 USD, this year. Last year, market value was three times greater. The crop has been steadily dropping in price since 1996. She says her family now uses all parts of the flower to make medicines and cosmetics to earn additional money. “We even use saffron petals to treat frost bite,” she says.
Akther’s family owns four kanals of saffron land, the equivalent of about one half acre. “We get six kilograms of saffron flowers from a kanal of land, per season,” she says as she sits with her father sifting saffron outside their modest house.
Her grandfather, Haji Mohammad Subhan, says saffron has always been profitable in Kashmir. “We’ve been associated with saffron cultivation for years. It has always been a profitable business. But lack of interest among youngsters towards its cultivation is one of the major reasons responsible for decline in its production,” he says. “Youngsters don’t look upon the saffron business with dignity and pride.”
While a lack of interest from local youth could be part of the problem, the reality is that saffron production has consistently declined here over the last 15 years for a variety of reasons. G. M. Pampori, president of the Saffron Growers Association in Kashmir, says the 2010 production season, which ended in November, yielded just 60 percent of the normal crop.
Kashmir was once known as the home of the world’s best saffron. But the climate here has drastically changed – wet spring seasons and hot, dry summers have become an inexplicable string of droughts and floods. At the same time, cheap imports from Iran and Spain are flooding the global market and smuggling the once-precious spice has become more common.
“But saffron is our identity,” Pampori says with a heavy sigh.
According to Pampori and other experts in field here, the unpredictable weather can be blamed for the smaller crop yield, but it is the “sincerity” of Kashmiri saffron that has caused “disastrous results” on the global market.
“There are many who mix corms with saffron only to earn a bad name in the market,” Pampori says. Diluting Kashmir saffron, he says, “Defames the whole trade and every saffron grower is viewed with a conspicuous eye.”
To complicate matters, over the past few months there has been a series of seizures and arrests that have shined a light on the illegal import of saffron.
Customs officers in India told one local newspaper that they are finding up to three cases of smuggled saffron every day. The saffron that is flooding the Indian, and many other markets, is coming from Iran where the spice costs half the price of Indian saffron.
Pampori, says his sources indicate that about 100 kilograms of saffron enter India illegally each month.
“I have tried to raise this problem with the government in Delhi but without any success,” Pampori says.
While problems on the national and international level are plaguing global sales, Bashir Ahmad Dar, a local resident and saffron farmer, says for the people in Kashmir who are cultivating the spice, the problem is the middlemen.
Dar says farmers sell their saffron to middlemen who mix lower quality saffron with higher quality saffron and charging exorbitant prices. “They also [artificially] color the stamens to make it look superior,” Dar says, as deep red saffron is considered higher quality. Because Kashmiri saffron has been mixed and died for the past few seasons, the reputation of Kashmiri growers has suffered. “Consequently, the rate goes down and ultimately growers suffer,” Dar says.
Dar and other local farmers here say that they are now facing too many obstacles. Drought. Corruption. Lack of interest from youth. And a global sales crisis. And while the quality of Kashmiri saffron has declined, the cost remains high, in part because there is no infrastructure in place to streamline the cultivation of the spice.
“Sprinkle irrigation is a must for growth and cultivation of saffron,” says Pampori, adding that Iran has irrigated saffron fields that decrease the labor and increase the production of saffron, despite changing weather patterns.
Most saffron fields here are situated on banks of the Jehlum River, yet there are no irrigation facilities in the state, making saffron fields dependent on rainfall alone. “In recent years, winter seasons have been almost dry and rainfall has reduced during summers creating drought-like conditions. We had no rains this year in March but the summer months have seen steady rainfall. This affects saffron production,” says Peerzada Imran, an engineer with Jain Irrigation, a local company.
Imran says his firm is ready to provide subsidies to saffron farmers for digging wells and creating irrigation systems. He says he has encouraged a group of saffron growers to pool their resources so their dream of “sprinkle irrigation” is realized.
Abdul Hamid, another local saffron grower, says irrigation is necessary for saffron to continue growing here as both too much and too little rain is dangerous for the crop. “Saffron is cultivated on raised mounds in vast fields so that rainfall doesn’t get collected. Too much rainfall too is dangerous for the crop too,” he says.
“Since saffron is falling a victim to urbanization, poor maintenance and government apathy, its production and exports have been declining nearly 3 percent every two years since 1996,” Hamid says.
In Spain, one of the world’s major saffron exporters, irrigation systems allow farmers to yield of eight to 10 kilograms per hectare, or just over two acres. In Iran, their fields are said to yield an average of nearly five kilograms per hectare. Here, the yield is just two and a half kilograms per hectare.
Local growers recently approached the government for assistance in building new irrigation options. “Our crops are at the mercy of rain. We approached our [local] government for a loan to set up a sprinkle irrigation facility. But they turned their back on us,” says Farooq Ahmad, a saffron grower.
Local government officials declined to comment for this article.
