Climate Change Continues to Harm Kashmir's Famed Saffron Fields

Dry conditions believed to be caused by climate change continue to threaten Kashmir's expansive crop fields and, with it, a 2,500-year-old livelihood to the Indian administrative region.

"These fields used to be like goldmines," said Abdul Ahad Mir in Pampore, located south of the region's largest city and summer capital of Srinagar. In a story from the AFP, Mir's family has long lived in the region, finding livelihood in the traditional work of pulling the expensive red threads within the purple flowers of the saffron crocus flowers.

Mir noted that it took more than 80 men more than a week to pick the flowers needed for the spice in the past. Today, however, their family of six can finish the task in a day.

The Threat to the Red Gold

Increasing average temperatures, attributed to climate change, have turned rainfall in the region erratic and denying the saffron fields of much-needed water. Additionally, the continuous depletion of ice caps in the Himalayas further aggravates the lack of water in the fields.

A 2019 study reported that the Himalayas has been suffering from accelerated ice losses for 40 years. Using a dataset taken from digital elevation models from cold war-era spy satellites to modern satellite imagery. The towering mountain range has long supplied meltwater to a number of densely populated catchments in the South Asian region.

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Additionally, a team led by the University of Kashmir compared the more recent period of 1991-2005 to the standard climatic indices for 1961-1990, revealing a steady increase in average temperatures - regardless of whether it was winter, spring, or summer in the Kashmir region.

According to an article by the Business Insider, the sought-after spice can cost up to $10,000 per kilogram, requiring more than 150 flowers to make 1 gram of saffron and approximately 40 hours of manual labor to produce a kilogram of the spice.

However, official figures in 2018 show that saffron harvests were only equivalent to only 1.4 kilograms per hectare of land. It was down by half compared to the official figures in 1998, twenty years earlier.

Additionally, the coronavirus pandemic has even affected the harvest season - a two-week window at the end of autumn - together with security lockdowns in relation to the longstanding dispute between India and Pakistan.

An Ancient Material

Historians claim that saffron, or zafran in Persian, has been cultivated in the Kashmir region as early as 500 BC. Local legends claim that a pair of Sufi saints presented a saffron crocus bulb to a local chieftain after they were cured of a disease. The legend is commemorated with a shrine and tomb dedicated to the saints.

Its traditional and labor-intensive harvesting methods remain a primary factor in its unbelievable retail prices. It has also been associated with luxury and history's extravagant leaders. It has been said that Cleopatra, the queen from Ptolemaic Egypt, used saffron in her baths. Saffron has also been used to dye the clothing items of Minoan women and mixed in cosmetic products of the time.