Pampore, Indian-administered Kashmir – At 4am, earlier than the primary name to prayer echoes via Pampore’s saffron fields within the Pulwama district of Indian-administered Kashmir, 52-year-old Bashir Ahmad Bhat steps out with a flashlight.
The crisp air carries the scent of soil, however his coronary heart sinks – his valuable saffron corms, nurtured for months, lie ravaged, devoured in a single day.
“It’s like a struggle,” Bashir says, his voice stuffed with exasperation. “We fought local weather change, fought low market costs.”
“However who would have thought we’d need to battle porcupines?”
For generations, farmers like Bashir have cultivated saffron in Pampore, the center of India’s saffron trade and the third-largest on this planet after Iran and Afghanistan.
The land right here is taken into account sacred by locals, producing among the world’s most interesting saffron with an unmatched 8.72 p.c crocin content material. Crocin determines saffron’s color and antioxidant worth: the upper the worth, the higher the standard. Kashmir’s saffron has a deep crimson hue and robust aroma.
These farmers have confronted a spread of challenges and have outlasted them – from a greater than three-decade-long lethal battle between armed separatists and Indian safety forces, to smuggling and adulteration of saffron because it heads to world markets, affecting costs for producers.
But, lately, the world’s costliest spice faces a brand new and surprising risk in Kashmir: the Indian crested porcupine.
A rising risk at the hours of darkness
As soon as confined to the area’s forests, the porcupines – a protected species in Jammu and Kashmir – have ventured into saffron farms, pushed by deforestation, habitat loss and local weather change. In contrast to different rodents, these nocturnal creatures dig deep into the earth, looking for out saffron bulbs for meals.
Kashmir’s saffron manufacturing was already struggling. Battered by erratic rainfall, insufficient irrigation and concrete encroachment on farmland, it had plummeted from 15.97 metric tonnes in 1997-98 to only 3.48 metric tonnes in 2021-22.
However over the previous 5 to seven years, farmers say the devastating injury wrought by porcupines has compounded the disaster. They report dropping as much as 30 p.c of their crops yearly to porcupines.
By 2024, federal authorities knowledge confirmed Kashmir’s saffron yield had fallen to 2.6 metric tonnes, placing in danger a $45m trade that sustains 32,000 households throughout the area.
Ahmad estimates that he has misplaced no less than 300,000 Indian rupees [$3,500] price of saffron prior to now two years attributable to porcupines. “At first, we thought it was stray animals. However after we began discovering porcupine quills across the fields, we knew the issue was greater.”
Failed options
The area’s forest division, recognising the rising infestation, tried an natural repellent spray final yr. Farmers hoped it could maintain the porcupines at bay.
“It labored for some time, however they got here again,” says 45-year-old Abdul Rashid, one other farmer from the world. “They dig even deeper now, as if they’ve tailored.”
Some farmers have resorted to conventional strategies: inserting thorny bushes round their fields, establishing floodlights and even patrolling at night time. None of it has labored. The porcupines are relentless.
“We want actual motion, not simply phrases,” says Rashid, whose land borders Ahmad’s. “If this continues, Kashmiri saffron will disappear.”
The porcupine invasion isn’t just a neighborhood drawback. Kashmir’s saffron is a world commodity, and any disruption in provide can ship ripples via the worldwide market, say trade insiders.
Iran’s saffron – which constitutes about 85 p.c of the spice produced globally – has a decrease crocin content material (6.82 p.c) than its Kashmiri cousin.
As Kashmir’s yields decline, merchants worry Iranian dominance over the market will prolong even additional than it already does.
“If even 5 p.c of the crop is misplaced to porcupines, that’s a 29-million-rupee ($350,000) loss yearly,” says Bilal Ahmed, a saffron dealer in Srinagar. “Costs will rise and Kashmiri saffron may develop into a luxurious few can afford.”
The destiny of Kashmir’s ‘crimson gold’
As daybreak breaks over Pampore, Bashir Ahmad collects the scattered quills left behind by the porcupines. He sighs, figuring out that tonight, the cycle will repeat.
For now, the battle continues. However farmers like Ahmad worry they’re dropping and that the world could quickly need to face a future with out Kashmir’s prized “crimson gold”: An oz of saffron within the world market prices greater than an oz of gold.
“In the event that they maintain coming, we can have nothing left,” he says, shaking his head. “This land has given us saffron for hundreds of years. If we lose it, we lose part of Kashmir itself.”
The porcupine invasion in Pampore’s saffron fields isn’t any accident. Mir Muskan Un Nisa, a analysis scholar on the Sher-e-Kashmir College of Agricultural Sciences and Expertise, says that habitat destruction and shrinking forest cowl are making fewer meals sources accessible within the nocturnal rodents’ native ecosystems. So, saffron corms present an simply accessible and nutritious various.
“Their burrowing and feeding habits not solely scale back saffron yields but in addition injury soil well being, affecting future cultivation,” she says.
She explains that farmers should undertake protecting measures like deep-set wire fencing, which extends 1.5 metres (5 ft) underground to make it more durable for porcupines and different rodents to dig their manner beneath them. Pure repellents, and motion-activated sensors that flash a light-weight or make a sound when animals strategy, thus scaring them, are different choices, she says.
Devising methods to securely entice the porcupines and relocate them “is essential to safeguarding each the crops and the porcupine inhabitants”, she provides.
Local weather change has performed a major function in Kashmir’s porcupine problem, specialists say. Erratic climate patterns have altered vegetation cycles, affecting the provision of porcupines’ conventional meals sources. Warmer winters, which had been as soon as uncommon in Kashmir, now permit porcupines to stay energetic for longer durations, damaging saffron farms greater than earlier than.
Furthermore, wild predators resembling leopards and wild canine helped preserve ecological steadiness by conserving porcupine numbers beneath management. Nevertheless, with predator populations dwindling attributable to habitat destruction and human exercise, porcupine numbers seem to have surged, say wildlife specialists. They cite a pointy rise in sightings and crop injury, although there is no such thing as a official census of porcupines.
What may be achieved?
Wildlife and agricultural specialists at the moment are exploring potential options to curb the porcupine menace.
“One suggestion is the managed reintroduction of pure predators, resembling wild canine, to revive ecological steadiness. Nevertheless, this stays controversial, because it may pose dangers to livestock and human settlements,” says Zaheer Ahmad, a wildlife professional.
A extra rapid answer that some farmers have tried is fencing and trapping. Whereas electrical fencing has confirmed considerably efficient in deterring porcupines, it’s prohibitively costly for a lot of small-scale farmers. Trapping and relocation of porcupines, if carried out systematically, may provide a viable various.
Scientists are additionally creating biodegradable repellents that mimic predator scents to scare away porcupines. In contrast to the natural repellent spray examined final yr, which yielded blended outcomes, these new formulations goal to supply a extra lasting deterrent with out harming the setting.
Safeguarding saffron crops is especially difficult, says Intesar Suhail, the regional head of wildlife conservation and forest safety for North Kashmir.
“For fruit timber, like almond and apple, portray the trunks white or overlaying them with gunny baggage can provide safety,” he tells Al Jazeera. White paint displays daylight, fending off pests, whereas gunny baggage act as bodily limitations.
However these ways don’t work for saffron, grown from bulbs in open fields, he says.
Planting particular species like wormwood or wild yam “round area perimeters could function a deterrent”, he says. These crops emit scents that porcupines keep away from.
“Additionally, spraying pepper options across the bulbs may assist, offered it doesn’t hurt the crop.”
Nevertheless, saffron farmers say they want the federal government’s assist to introduce these adjustments.
Compensation for crop losses, subsidies for fencing and long-term wildlife administration insurance policies may assist mitigate the disaster, they are saying.
And time is working out.
“We used to fret in regards to the climate or the market, however now, we’re dropping our crop earlier than it even reaches harvest,” says Ghulam Nabi, a 39-year-old whose farm is subsequent to Ahmad’s. “If this continues, our livelihood might be completed.”
