Saffron – a unique agricultural product and a cash crop is all endowed with the characteristics of therapeutic value, aroma and taste value and of multipurpose usages and its top quality is grown in Kashmir valley and in Kishtwar in Jammu region. Heritage site of Pampore in District Srinagar has its own name and legend behind it. India is the second largest producer of saffron but saffron growers in Jammu and Kashmir are facing certain basic problems in its cultivation and marketability coupled with competition in international market from countries like Iran, China and even Afghanistan. Irrigation related problems are the main problems, besides low yield and marketing related ones faced by saffron growing farmers. To broadly overcome it, a scheme known as National Saffron Mission was launched in the year 2010-11 but the focus was on the main and quality ”Saffron Bowl “- i,e; cultivation of the ‘golden flowers ‘in Jammu and Kashmir though later in 2020 , it was extended to the states of the North East as well. That all means an equal participation and putting in the required stakes and interest by the state (and now the UT) of Jammu and Kashmir along with the Union Ministry of Science and Technology in the overall objective of increasing the annual saffron crop yield per hectare by 3 to 5 kilogram, not a mean projection looking to the marketing price factor and the expected financial gains to the cultivators. The ‘Mission’ aimed at not only increasing the yield of the crop but to see and ensure that an estimated number of over 35000 people engaged directly with the farming and many more with its marketing etc , could get added benefits commensurate with the yield. The components of irrigation and standardising of the quality of the soil were other areas aimed at to get focused attention. There must be a reason for concern that the yield of saffron does not increase year by year in the normal course in the conventional bowl, instead it is gradually declining. Farming community engaged with growing of the cash crop account for it as the non-operational status of the much hyped Saffron Mission. So much hopes for the Saffron of Jammu and Kashmir had grown with the provisions of the said scheme that it was proposed to take JK Saffron to the North East so as to increase the production of the prized crop at the national level. Had facilities for irrigation been getting due attention of the successive Governments of Jammu and Kashmir , as usually during the dry weather conditions there is not sufficient rainfall to satisfy the crop’s needs , the fears that this year’s yield expected to be low would have not been generated in the minds of the growers. Net work of sprinklers and laying of under-ground pipes for supplying water for irrigating the crop, though under a project of Rs.400 crore under the National Saffron Mission (NSM), as on date, on evaluation is not completed even up to one third of the target fixed. In other words, as against 126 bore-wells to have been dug for irrigation facilities during all these 11 years, less than half only have been dug and many among those are not even operational. That gives a general glimpse of how much seriousness was there in the implementation of the much talked about NSM in the main Saffron Bowl of the country. The general feeling of the growers is that the Government’s efforts, no doubt, being positive in the direction but on the ground level, the officers concerned are not putting in their expected best resulting in the drought like situation faced by the crop resulting in low yield- may even compel many growers to call it a day and abandon its cultivation . That, such a situation may not visit this most popular and famous agricultural crop of Jammu and Kashmir specific areas, Government must arrange to have the issue seriously looked into and make the NSM really a tool to help saffron growing with good yield in Jammu and Kashmir
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