Once upon a time, Mohammad Shafi would go to the saffron fields and collect five to ten kilograms of saffron from one Kanal of land. Now he raises just two kilograms.

Kashmir is suffering from one the worst crises regarding saffron production this year. But this does not dampen the spirit of Shafi, as he is hopeful that he will soon be able to see a blooming display of saffron flowers.

Shafi has been in the saffron business for an amazing 50 years now. He says, “I have seen it all – right from the insurgency to the September 2014 floods.”

   Though those floods nearly cost Shafi everything. Saffron is sown at some point  between mid-September to mid-October. At that point in time, even the first floor of Shafi’s home was inundated with flood water.

His piece of saffron land is just a few kilometres away from his home, but fortunately, it was not hit by the floods. Despite such chaos, he managed to reach his field, fertilised the land and had an incredible produce that year.

This is just one of the many amazing stories of saffron from the valley. Kashmir is one of the three most prominent places in the world for cultivating saffron, and Kashmiri version is seen as a marvel of the species. It has been grown in the fields of Pampore in Pulwama district, for many centuries now. Pampore is known as the ‘Saffron town of Kashmir’. But sadly, lately, it has mostly caught eyeballs due to a sharp decline in its production.

Jammu & Kashmir has a monopoly of saffron cultivation in India. Pulwama and Kishtwar are the only two locations in the country with suitable climate and soil for saffron cultivation. And even globally, nearly 7.3 per cent of the world’s saffron is produced in the state. This puts India third in world production.