Floods Damage Paddy, Apple Crops in J&K; Saffron Crop to Benefit Later

09-Sep-2025 06:06 PM

Srinagar. Although, due to heavy rains and severe floods in Jammu and Kashmir, paddy and apple crops are likely to suffer a lot of damage. But in the coming months, when the saffron crop will start growing,

it is expected to benefit from good moisture. Due to floods and rains, paddy plants have been lying on the ground in many areas, due to which the producers are likely to suffer a lot of loss.

The saffron crop requires good moisture from mid-August to mid-September. Pampore area, located south of Srinagar, is considered to be the main producer of saffron.

The producers are expecting a great production of saffron this year due to favorable weather. For the last two-three years, the weather was unfavorable there, due to which the saffron crop was getting damaged.

Official data shows that during the last two decades, there has been a tremendous decline of about 65 percent in the production of saffron in Kashmir,

the reason for which is believed to be the decrease in sowing area and bad weather conditions. In 1996-97, the area of ​​saffron was more than 5700 hectares, but by 2019-20 it had come down to 2387 hectares.

In the year 2023, the government approved an important project with an amount of Rs 146 crore under the Logistics Agriculture Development Program (HADP) with the aim of promoting and encouraging very special crops like saffron. In the year 2024,

due to lack of rain during June-July and drought due to high temperature for a long time, saffron production declined by 20-30 percent. Although this year also the month of June was hot, but due to good rains in July-August, the condition of the crop has become very good.