Saffron, Kashmir’s legendary spice, is being driven to the brink by a lethal combination of climate change, pollution, and official neglect.
For centuries, the first light of an autumn day would illuminate a breathtaking sea of purple blooms, a vibrant carpet spread across the undulating, table-top plateaus known as the karewas. This was the signal for a joyous saffron harvest. The dawn in Pampore used to arrive painted in shades of violet and smelling of honeyed earth every year from October to December.
Now, the morning light reveals a different, more heartbreaking scene. A patchwork of brown, parched earth and thin, hesitant flowers. The farmers who remain are the last guardians of this dying crop.
At 62, Abdul Hamid Wani’s fingers, stained a deep sunset orange from a meagre morning’s harvest, move slowly through a field of patchy blooms. His back is bent not just by decades of stooping and toiling in his farm, but by the weight of a disappearing world.
“This land,” he says, with a blend of grief and fury, “once gave my father over 500 grams of saffron from this very plot. Now, if I gather 80 grams by the end of the season, we call it a miracle. The earth is as thirsty as our hopes.” He opens his calloused palm to reveal a few crumpled purple blossoms, their crimson stigmas like tiny, fragile flames.
“This is all that is left of our gold.”
Wani adds in desperation, “I might be the last guardian of Kashmiri saffron, if government's approach remains casual.”
Saffron, the legendary luxury spice, was once woven into the robes of kings and the verses of poets. Known locally as Kong Posh, the saffron flower is a thread of crimson gold that has stitched together Kashmir's culture, economy, and identity for millennia. Today, that thread is fraying to its breaking point owing to changing climate, suffocating industrial pollution, and catastrophic government failure.
A Sacred Legacy
Saffron’s origins in Kashmir are shrouded in myth. Many believe it arrived with two Sufi saints, Khawaja Masood Wali and Sheikh Sharif-u-din Wali, in the 12th century, who carried a single bulb to cure a king’s ailment. From that one bulb, the story goes, sprang the fields of Pampore. Others claim that it was locally grown as a part of the Jhelum Valley Civilization.
But its roots sink even deeper into the region's soul, transcending religion. In Hindu spirituality, it is Kesar, a sacred symbol of purity, asceticism, and divine light, used in prayers and smeared on the foreheads of devotees. It is mentioned in ancient Sanskrit texts, including the Kashmiri Nilamata Purana, and was celebrated by the 8th-century philosopher-saint Adi Shankara.
The great 11th-century Sanskrit poet Bilhana, who hailed from Khrew, wove imagery of saffron into his Sanskrit verses, its colour as a metaphor for passion and its scent as an essence of the land itself. Besides other noted Kashmiri poets, even the great philosopher-poet of Kashmir, Gani Kashmiri, is said to have written about saffron.
The life and verses of the great Sufi saint Wahab Khar, the “Blacksmith Poet” of Kashmir (1842-1912), born in Shaar Shaali, Khrew, forged a legacy of divine love and spiritual wisdom. This profound spiritual significance is matched by its undeniable, almost mystical quality.
In the global spice trade, Iran produces over 90% of the world's saffron, a volume that dominates the market. Yet, Kashmir's mere 5% share commands a price that can be triple that of its Persian counterpart. The high-quality Kashmir saffron owes it to the very soil, characteristics and soul of the Pampore plateau.
Kashmiri saffron is renowned for its unparalleled colouring strength, its complex aroma—a heady mix of honey, grass, and a faint earthiness—and its potent, sharp flavour. This is the holy trinity of qualities—colour, aroma, and flavour—that earned it a Protected Geographical Indication (PGI) status in 2020, because of Crocin, an antioxidant, which the Kashmiri saffron possesses in higher value as a unique characteristic. Tragically, the status arrived just as that very origin is vanishing from the earth.
The Delicate Art of Harvest
Producing this ‘King of Spices’ is an act of love, immense patience, and back-breaking labour. It is a craft untouched by the mechanisation that defines modern agriculture, passed hand-to-hand, mother-to-daughter, father-to-son, through countless generations. The process is a study in slow time and sudden, frantic action.
The saffron crocus (Crocus sativus) is a sterile plant, propagated solely through its corms (bulb-like stems). For most of the year, it lies dormant beneath the unique, well-drained soil of the Karewas. Then, in late October, as the autumn chill sharpens, it prepares for its brief, spectacular performance.
The harvest is a race against the sun. Entire families rise in the dead of the night, wrapping themselves in warm pherans (traditional cloaks) against the cold. Armed with wicker baskets, they move through the fields by the faint light of lanterns and headlamps, their breath misting in the air. They must pluck the vibrant purple flowers on the single day they bloom, before the delicate petals are withered by the day’s sun.
This pre-dawn ritual is followed by kong mein, or the de-stinging. In the warmth of their homes, groups of women gather, sitting cross-legged on carpets, surrounded by mounds of freshly picked purple flowers. With a swift, precise pinch, they pluck the three precious crimson stigmas from each blossom amidst the chatter of gossip and songs.
It takes roughly 160,000 flowers to produce just one kilogram of dried saffron. Each gram represents the patient work of hundreds of hands.
“My hands have done this since I was a girl of six or seven,” says Hafiza Akhter, 57, her fingers flying through a pile of blossoms like hummingbirds, separating the precious red threads from the useless yellow styles and the purple petals.
“I learned from my mother, and she from hers. This work is in our blood. But I don't know if my daughter will do it. She's in college now, she wants a different life. This work… it's too much for too little reward.” The scent that fills the room is intoxicating.
The separated stigmas are then carefully dried over low heat, often on a mesh over a charcoal fire, a process that intensifies their flavour and aroma and reduces them to the brittle, crimson threads known the world over. What remains is a fortune in miniature, a pile of gold that must now navigate a hostile storm of crises.
Parched Earth
The saffron crocus is a fragile plant that demands timely autumn showers. Known locally as "Rah", these rains are the trigger, the alarm clock that coaxes the dormant flowers to life. They must fall in September and early October to soften the summer-baked soil, providing just enough moisture for the buds to push through. For generations, the farmers could set their calendars by them.
Now, the "Rah" is a fading memory. The climate in Kashmir has become increasingly erratic and unforgiving. Winters are shorter and warmer, with less snowfall in the surrounding mountains to replenish the groundwater. The crucial autumn months are now marked by prolonged, agonising droughts, punctuated by unseasonal, destructive downpours that can flatten the delicate flowers.
Climate scientists confirm what farmers like Abdul Ahad Teli feel in their bones. “The data shows a significant decline in pre-winter precipitation, almost nothing, and a rise in average temperatures in the Kashmir Valley,” explains Faisal Abass from Annamalai University, Chennai.
“The saffron is a delicate crop; even a slight shift in its thermal and hydrological regime can have catastrophic consequences for its phenology— the timing of flowering of saffron comb,” he says.
Ahad, his face etched with the worry of a man watching his legacy dissolve, puts it more plainly, “The flower is like a child that cries for milk. The rain is its milk. For years now, the sky has given us nothing but silence. We look up, and it is a blank, blue mockery.”
The Poisoned Air
A few kilometres away, in the town of Khrew, a cluster of nearly eight cement factories belches continuous plumes of grey, particulate-laden smoke into the atmosphere. This is the same area once famed as the homeland of the Sanskrit poet Bilhana, a place of natural beauty now shrouded in an industrial haze.
The impact of this pollution is twofold and devastating. Environmental studies have shown that the emissions, rich in sulphur dioxide and fluoride, settle on the soil and the delicate crocus flowers. The saffron plant is a bio-accumulator, meaning it absorbs substances from its environment.
The pollutants not only stunt the growth of the flowers but also contaminate the stigmas themselves, potentially affecting their chemical composition and famed purity.
“The dust from these factories coats everything,” says Hilal Ahmad Rather, a grower in his forties, gesturing towards the hazy outline of the factories. “It coats the leaves, it gets into the flowers. We are breathing it, and our saffron is drinking it. How can something so pure grow in such poison?”
The chest complaints among locals have risen along with the number of cancer patients, which is at an alarming rate in the area, a bitter side effect of this industrial assault on a pastoral landscape.
Adding to the toxic mix is the constant fug of vehicular emissions from the NH44 road whose ever-increasing traffic adds a relentless layer of grime and hydrocarbons to the air, further stressing the fragile crop, and triggering climate change.
State of Denial
Faced with the mounting water crisis, the government’s response was, on paper, a lifeline. In 2010, the Central government launched the ambitious ₹4.1 billion (then approximately $90 million) National Saffron Mission (NSM). Its centrepiece was a state-of-the-art irrigation system for Pampore - a network of tube wells, water pipes, and sprinklers designed to drought-proof the fields.
On the ground, a decade later, it stands as a stark, ironic monument to neglect, a symbol of the gulf between policy and reality. The mission has become a byword for corruption and flawed execution.
Across the saffron fields of Pampore, the evidence of failure is everywhere. Ditches dug for pipes lie empty or are filled with crumbling, disconnected plastic tubes. Dozens of tube wells, drilled at great cost, are rusting and defunct, their control panels smashed. Elaborate sprinkler systems, meant to mimic life-giving rain, have never emitted a single drop.
“They dug up our land, laid these plastic pipes that look like they are made for a child’s garden, and vanished,” says Mohammad Sultan Bhat, his voice trembling with anger as he kicks a disconnected pipe lying in his field. “They promised us water. They gave us junk. They promised the hope and left us with a scarred land on the note of haplessness.”
The demand for accountability is growing, particularly among the younger generation of farmers. “The government must task the Offensive Wing of the Anti-Corruption Bureau to probe this failed irrigation scheme,” says Imran Ashraf Dar, a 35-year-old graduate who returned to the family trade, only to find it collapsing.
“We need a public inquiry. We need to know where the money went, why the design was so flawed. This was our lifeline, and it has been cut. We are watching our heritage and livelihood fade to a pale shadow, and we are expected to just accept it.”
This season, the consequences of this triple assault are starkly quantifiable. Hilal Ahmad Rather estimates a devastating 75 percent loss in his yield. “A harvest of 800 kilograms for the entire area would be a miracle this year,” he says, a statement that would have been unthinkable two decades ago when Kashmir produced over 14 tonnes annually.
Money Matters
The consequence of this crisis is a simple, brutal economic equation. The mathematics of saffron no longer adds up.
Where Kashmir once consistently produced over 14 tonnes of saffron annually in the 1990s, it now struggles to reach six, with recent yields dipping towards four and now to a historical low. Meanwhile, the cost of everything has soared—labour for the back-breaking harvest, electricity for the water pumps they are forced to rely on, and other inputs.
Simultaneously, the market is flooded with cheap, often adulterated Iranian saffron, which is frequently passed off as Kashmiri by unscrupulous traders, both within India and abroad. The PGI tag, meant to be a shield against this, remains poorly enforced, a label without teeth. The farmer, who has borne the cost of a failing harvest, is cheated twice—first by nature and the state, then by the market.
Faced with financial ruin and an uncertain future, farmers are making the only choice they feel they have. They are selling the very land that defines them. The unique karewa soil, perfectly aerated and drained for saffron for millennia, is being buried under concrete for housing estates or converted to apple orchards.
The apple boom in Kashmir offers a tangible financial respite, but this year it too had to face a loss of Rs 1200-1500 crores due to flawed policies. Apples are less labour-intensive as compared to saffron harvest. However, they have a more reliable water supply through dedicated borewells, and offer a quicker, more certain return. But this shift represents a shift from the delicate, artisanal craft of cultivating ‘red gold’ to the bulk, chemical-intensive business of growing fruit.
The loss is not just agricultural. It is social, cultural, and deeply psychological.
“This land was blessed for saffron,” reflects Tariq Ahmed, 32, of Chandhara hamlet, known for Habba Khatoon or Zoon (Habiba). But Tariq's family is intending to sell a portion of their saffron fields to a businessman from Srinagar, who wants to establish a warehouse on their land. “My grandfather would walk these fields and know every inch of them. He could tell you the story of each corm. But blessings don't pay the bills. Saffron is our heritage, but we see no future in it now,” he says with a sense of resignation.
A Faint Hope
Yet, in the face of this slow-motion catastrophe, all is not quite lost. The fields of Pampore are not yet silent. A few determined farmers, often the older generation or a handful of stubborn young idealists, continue to tend their corms, believing in the intrinsic value of what they hold.
Saving Kashmiri saffron, they argue, requires an immediate, intelligent, and concerted effort that matches the scale of the crisis. The path forward is clear, though steep; and requires a multi-pronged approach.
The failed irrigation system cannot be merely tinkered with. It needs a complete, transparent, and accountable overhaul. This means a forensic audit of the NSM, holding contractors and officials to account, and then designing a new, scientifically robust, and community-managed irrigation network that actually delivers water to the thirsty corms. Solar-powered micro-irrigation systems could offer a sustainable solution.
The PGI tag must be more than a label on a premium product. It requires aggressive enforcement and a transparent, traceable certification system—from field to filament—that allows consumers to be certain of authenticity. This would involve blockchain technology or QR codes that tell the story of the saffron’s origin, empowering the consumer to choose the real thing and ensuring a fair price reaches the actual grower, not the middleman.
The environmental assault from the cement factories must be addressed through stricter enforcement of pollution control norms and a transition to cleaner technologies. Simultaneously, research into developing drought-resistant and pollution-resilient corm varieties is essential. Training in water conservation techniques like mulching and drip irrigation are no longer luxuries, but necessities for survival, including rain harvesting.
Creating direct market linkages, such as farmer-producer organisations (FPOs), essentially, farmers cooperatives, can help growers bypass exploitative intermediaries. Financial safety nets, including crop insurance tailored to saffron’s unique vulnerabilities, can provide a buffer against catastrophic harvests. This direct support can make the difference between a farmer holding on or selling out.
Till that happens, the saffron farmers stare at a bleak future.
As the sun sets over Pampore, casting long shadows across the patchy fields, Abdul Hamid Wani sits on his haunches, looking at the small, crimson pile in a wooden tray that represents a year of his life, his hope, and his struggle. It is a sight that brings to mind an old couplet, a nightingale's plea to a stone for a single blade of grass.
Today, the farmers of Kashmir are that nightingale, pulling at a land that is turning to stone, asking not for a miracle, but for the simple conditions that would allow their heritage to survive. The answer to their plea will determine if the gold of Kashmir vanishes into memory, or if, against all odds, it can bloom again.
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