Kashmir’s saffron growers experiment with indoor farming as local weather pressures mount

Kashmiri farmer and saffron producer Ghulam Mohammad Mir and his household choose saffron stigmas from the flowers at his residence in Kashmir’s Pampore October 31, 2024.
| Picture Credit score: Reuters

Tucked in a valley beneath the snow-capped Himalayas of the Indian Kashmir area is the city of Pampore, famed for its farms that develop the world’s costliest spice – the red-hued saffron.

That is the place most of saffron is farmed in India, the world’s second-largest producer behind Iran of the spice, which prices as much as 325,000 rupees ($3,800) a kg (2.2 kilos) as a result of it’s so labour-intensive to reap.

About 90% of India’s saffron is produced in Kashmir, of which a majority is grown in Pampore, however the small city is below risk of speedy urbanisation, in keeping with the Indian Council of Scientific & Industrial Analysis (CSIR).

Specialists say rising temperatures and erratic rainfall pose a danger to saffron manufacturing, which has dropped from 8 metric tons within the monetary 12 months 2010-11 to 2.6 metric tons in 2023-24, the federal authorities informed parliament in February, including that efforts had been being made to spice up manufacturing.

One such programme is a challenge to assist develop the plant indoors in a managed setting in tubes containing moisture and important vitamins, which Dr. Bashir Ilahi at state-run Sher-e-Kashmir College of Agricultural Sciences mentioned has proven good outcomes.

“Rising saffron in a managed setting demonstrates temperature resistance and considerably reduces the danger of crop failure,” mentioned Ilahi, standing in his laboratory between stacks of crates containing tubes of the purple flower.

Ilahi and different native consultants have been serving to farmers with demonstrations on how one can develop the crocus plant indoors. “It’s a tremendous innovation,” mentioned Abdul Majeed, president of Kashmir’s Saffron Growers Affiliation, a few of whose members, together with Majeed, have been cultivating the crop indoors for a couple of years. Manzoor Ahmad Mir, a saffron grower, urged extra state help.

“The federal government ought to promote indoor saffron cultivation on a a lot bigger scale as local weather change is affecting all the world, and Kashmir is not any exception,” Mir mentioned.