The Kashmir Saffron Harvest

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Driving about half an hour outside Srinagar in the first two weeks of November you begin to smell the saffron and see its carpets of purple blue flowers either side of the road.  Then when you stand in the field you are intoxicated by the saffron.  The harvest is a family affair with a festival atmosphere, with whole families working together on their fields which have been theirs for generations.  The whole process is done by hand. 

The saffron harvest takes place in first two weeks of November.  The saffron harvesters are looking for a wet, early autumn.  , in the few weeks before the saffron is harvested they want rain to bring the flowers in abundant number.  In 2007, unfortunately there wasn’t much rain: the harvest was not as bountiful as usual.  It wasn’t a good harvest because of the weather conditions.

The saffron is cultivated in an area of 14km about half an hour’s drive outside Srinagar.  If you imagine, you can drive along the road and along both sides of the road, during harvest time, as the crocus flowers come out, there are fields of pastel purple-blue crocus flowers laying a carpet of flowers.  It’s really quite beautiful. 
When the harvest is ready and the crocus flowers are fully developed and ready for picking, the whole families who own the small plots of land, will come out of their houses at eight in the morning.  The whole village will descend on the fields, mother, father, and children.  The little plots are owned by families, and have been in their families for generations.  It’s a real family affair.  It’s almost like a festival atmosphere: all the families from the villages go out to pick the crocus flowers.

They all carry a wicker or plastic basket and start picking the crocuses by hand.  Everything is done by hand.  They generally make a pile by putting down a cloth in the middle of the plot.  When their bucket, basket or container is full they will go and empty it on the cloth and when the cloth is full they will wrap it in a big bundle and put it on one side.  They’ll probably pick all day until their particular plot or field is completely finished of flowers and then they’ll go home.  That’s only part of the process.  The next part of the process is the ladies will generally sit in their porches outside their houses and pluck the saffron stamens from the flowers.  It’s very labour intensive and takes a long time to do it.

Kashmiri saffron is probably the best saffron that you can buy in the world.  Probably because of the light and the climatic and soil conditions in Kashmir, it produces these longer and thicker stamens in the crocus flower, more so than the ones you can get in Spain or Iran.  It smells incredibly powerful.  When you’re standing in the fields of saffron you can smell it in the air and it is really quite, absolutely intoxicating.

Kashmiri saffron is a deep reddish colour, sort of golden.  When you look at it, once the crocus flowers have been taken out, you can see piles of red saffron all over, where the women have taken the flowers out.  It is like red golden threads, it’s really quite a beautiful spice to look at and to smell. 
For those two weeks in early November all activities are focussed on the saffron harvest.  Saffron is becoming more and more expensive; it is worth over 100,000 rupees a kilo about £1,300-1,500 per kilo to buy locally, if you’re a local merchant.

When you look at the fields from the distance it looks as if it’s a carpet of pastel blue and purple.  But the closer you get you realise that the crocus flowers are quite far apart, well they were when I was there.  Whether that was because the harvest was not the best it could be or if it’s like that every year I’m not sure.  I suspect that the dense carpets of flowers are a bit of a myth.  From the roadside, and from a distance, it is like a carpet and you’re drawn towards it, especially in the early morning light.  But when you’re standing in it and you look around you, especially at your feet, the actual crocus bulbs are not that closely planted, you can clearly see a foot either side is bare earth.

I took at least a week photographing the harvest in all its different guises and aspect: the women sitting outside their porches in the evening plucking the saffron, taking the stamens from the flowers, and I spent a lot of time in the fields trying to get a picture which encompassed all the aspects of the harvest.  You’ve got the crocus flower itself, and bring out the colour, what it looks like, how big, the shape and you have to include in that picture some picking of the flowers.
In the picture I’ve chosen I wanted to show that and that it’s a family affair, and parents and their children going out all hands to the pump to bring in the valuable harvest.  In this picture you’ve got the mother and in the background her two sons, picking the crocus flowers, and giving an idea of what field of saffron looks like.  That’s what I tried to engender in that picture.

What next?

• View more photography of Kashmir
• Learn about the about daily life on Dal Lake, Srinigar, Kashmir
• Hear Nick talk about the Mosques and Holy Shrines in Kashmir