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![Farmers checking the saffron flowers on their farm in Pampore, Kashmir. Credit: Athar Parvaiz/IPS](https://static.globalissues.org/ips/2024/02/Farmers-checking-the-saffron-flowers-in-their-farm-in-Pampore-Kashmir___Photo-by-Athar-Parvaiz__IPS-629x472.jpg)
SRINAGAR, India, Feb 07 (IPS) – Saffron, the costly spice from the Kashmir Himalayas, has been going through challenges for years, largely associated to yields and insufficient irrigation compounded by the local weather disaster.
Whereas the federal government launched the 4.1 billion rupee Nationwide Saffron Mission (NMS) in 2010 to mitigate these challenges and rejuvenate saffron cultivation in Kashmir, its efficacy stays questionable, farmers say.
Saffron is one in every of Kashmir’s main industries, together with horticulture and agriculture, supporting some 17,000 households within the area. India contributes 5% of the world’s whole manufacturing, of which 90% is provided from the Kashmir Himalayan area.
The spice has been cultivated since 500 AD within the Kashmir valley and reached its peak within the Nineteen Nineties at an annual common yield of round 15.5 tonnes from 5,700 hectares (14,085 acres), however each the land farmed for saffron and yields have declined since then.
In keeping with a examine, extended durations of drought have prompted important considerations amongst saffron farmers.
“Because the crop closely depends on rainfall, inadequate precipitation has resulted within the area experiencing its lowest saffron productiveness prior to now three many years,” the examine says.
“Along with the challenges posed by drought, the area can also be going through points associated to urbanization and growing inhabitants development,” the examine additional says. In keeping with Kashmir’s agriculture division, saffron land has lowered from 5,700 hectares within the Nineteen Nineties to three,715 hectares in 2016 because of land-use conversions.
Saffron farmers, who develop the “king of spices” in fields sprawling throughout a number of thousand hectares, primarily in south Kashmir’s Pulwama district, have been complaining for years that lack of rainfall at essential occasions has led to a decline in saffron manufacturing.
One or two spells of rain in September and October are important for the crop to flower, farmers say. However in most years because the late Nineteen Nineties, it both hasn’t rained in these months or has rained an excessive amount of, damaging the crop, says farmer Mohammad Reshi, including that farmers nonetheless depend on the climate within the cropping season.
“The sprinkle irrigation system, which the federal government claims has been put in place, ought to have been useful by now. However it isn’t working. You’ll be able to see for your self what has occurred to those pipes and the bore wells. They aren’t serving any goal,” Reshi tells IPS whereas pointing on the defunct sprinkle irrigation system in a saffron subject in Pampore, the place saffron cultivation is concentrated in Kashmir.
Although, Reshi says, tube wells have been dug and pipes have been laid in saffron fields for years now, “we’re but to see the water in saffron fields.”
In keeping with him, the venture was speculated to be accomplished years in the past, but it surely nonetheless lingers. Denying the allegations of saffron farmers, Ghulam Mohammad Dhobi, Joint Director of Kashmir’s agriculture division, who can also be the Nodal Officer for NMS, says that the federal government is attempting its greatest to assist the farmers get good yields.
“The farmers have to not look forward to lengthy to see the constructive outcomes of the irrigation infrastructure, as we expect its completion quickly after it should operate correctly,” Dhobi tells IPS.
In keeping with the Meals and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), which has given saffron cultivation in Kashmir a Globally Necessary Agricultural Heritage Methods (GIAHS) standing, “saffron cultivation has been going through extreme challenges of sustainability and livelihood safety, with an pressing have to undertake applicable applied sciences to deal with water shortage, productiveness loss, and market volatility.”
Scientific analysis has established that irrigation performs a very powerful function in saffron cultivation in Kashmir. Firdous Nahvi, a former agriculture scientist at Sher-e-Kashmir College of Agricultural Sciences and Know-how, says that saffron yields have historically relied on rainfall within the essential months from August to October in Kashmir, and saffron yields have fallen lately due to the irrigation downside.
In keeping with Nahvi, till 1999-2000, Kashmir obtained well-distributed precipitation of 1,000 to 1,200 mm per 12 months within the type of rain and snow, however that has now decreased to 600 to 800 mm.
“In any a part of the world, farming is unthinkable with out water,” Nahvi says and provides: “Creating irrigation services was the crucial a part of the venture as a result of now we have noticed lately that it does not rain when the crop wants the moisture.” Nahvi was the skilled who suggested the NMS implementers in regards to the want for putting in the sprinkle irrigation system for saffron cultivation in Kashmir.
Options in Farming Strategies
Bashir Allie, an agricultural scientist who heads Kashmir’s Saffron Analysis Station, says that he has additionally suggested the agriculture and irrigation departments of the Kashmir authorities that creating drip irrigation services is essential for bettering saffron yields.
“However we’re additionally working with farmers by our subject consciousness program to boost saffron yield,” Allie tells IPS, including that he and his crew are telling the farmers to plant the optimum variety of corms within the saffron fields relatively than planting them haphazardly.
For instance, Allie says, the farmers largely plant as much as 300,000 corms per hectare, “whereas we advise them to go for 500,000 to at least one million corms per hectare (or 50 corms per sq. meter).” This, he says, will assist the farmers enhance their yields, offered they uproot the previous corms each 4 years and plant new corms.
“What now we have additionally noticed is that the farmers maintain the corms within the fields for as much as 20 years and go away them unattended,” he tells IPS, including that this impacts the yield because the older corms maintain producing new corms, which will increase the competitors for vitamins throughout the inhabitants and all the inhabitants underperforms (in producing flowers), thus affecting the yield.
“So, the answer we’re providing to the farmers is to plant the optimum variety of corms (50 corms per sq. meter) and change the corms after each 4 years,” Allie informs.
To mitigate the influence of drought situations on saffron crops, Allie says that he and his crew have suggested the farmers to start out rising almond timber in saffron fields at a distance of 4 to 5 meters in order that they supply shade and assist the farmers retain moisture of their saffron fields.
“As soon as the almond timber produce branches, they are going to present shade to saffron fields, as saffron is a shade-loving plant. Additionally, the moisture within the soil might be retained,” Allie says, including that the almond timber, in addition to offering shade, may also produce almonds, thereby serving to the farmers enhance their earnings.
IPS UN Bureau Report
© Inter Press Service (2024) — All Rights ReservedAuthentic supply: Inter Press Service
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