It’s with pensive eyes that 60-year-old Ali Mohamed Reshi gazes over his saffron farm in Pulwama’s Lethpora space, some 22 km south of Srinagar. The protracted dry spell and local weather change spells doom for his crop of saffron, the world’s most coveted spice.
Because the starting of June, the Valley has been reeling underneath a scorching heatwave with temperatures going as much as 34 levels Celsius. On July 3, Kashmir recorded a temperature of 35.6 levels Celsius, the best within the final 25 years.
The local weather change during the last a number of years has taken a toll on the Kashmiri saffron fields, sprawling over 1000’s of hectares throughout Pulwama and Budgam districts. The erratic climate patterns have additionally led many farmers to transform their saffron discipline into apple orchards and different crops that they consider are higher suited to a modified local weather.
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Declining manufacturing
In response to Reshi, his seven-kanal farm as soon as yielded between 1,100 to 1,200 grams of saffron, but it surely has declined to a couple hundred grams in recent times.
“In 2022, the manufacturing dropped to 100 to 150 grams solely”, he stated.
Official knowledge recommend that the saffron manufacturing during the last 20 years dipped by 65 per cent.
The annual manufacturing in 1990 was 15.95 tonnes, in comparison with 2.6 tonnes in 2023-24.
Equally, the land used for the spice cultivation shrank from 5,707 hectares in 1996-97 to 2,387.71 hectares in 2019-19.
Mohammad Ashraf, one other saffron farmer from Pampore, stated that he had converted to mustard cultivation. “The low snowfall and rain deficit have impacted the manufacturing during the last many years,” stated an agriculture scientist.
“Kashmir skilled roughly a snowless winter in 2024 and this modification is certain to influence the crops”, he added.
Chief Agriculture Officer, Pulwama Mohammad Iqbal Khan, advised businessline that if the continuing dry spell continued via August, it might severely influence the crop.
He stated that in August, the soil wanted moisture because the farmers grubbed their fields round this time.
A failed dripping system
In 2010, the federal government launched a drip irrigation system as a part of the ₹412-crore Nationwide Saffron Mission to fight extended dry spells. Nonetheless, farmers report that whereas a community of pipes was put in on their farms, it was by no means made absolutely operational. The crop is shedding spice for farmers.
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