Kashmir's Saffron Crop Was Worth Rs 534.53 Crore in 2024-25, Carries a 2020 GI Tag and Has Had a Rs 400 Crore National Mission Behind It Since 2010

Jammu and Kashmir recorded 19.58 tonnes of saffron in 2024-25, with a production value of Rs 534.53 crore and exports of 17.82 tonnes worth Rs 486.43 crore, according to written replies in the Union Territory’s Assembly in February 2026. The crop comes from 3,715 hectares, mostly in Pulwama district around Pampore, and the name “Kashmir Saffron” has been a registered Geographical Indication (GI) since 1 May 2020. A national mission sanctioned in 2010 paid for replanting, irrigation and a trading centre at Pampore. Our profile of Jammu and Kashmir covers the territory’s wider economy, including its apples, so this piece stays with the spice. The 2024-25 season is the latest for which tuput found official figures as of 22 October 2026.

Where the crocus fields lie

Saffron is the dried stigma, the thread-like female part, of the autumn crocus, Crocus sativus, one of the spices whose trade is traced in Europe went looking for India’s pepper and cinnamon. In Kashmir it grows on the karewas, the valley’s raised highlands. The Geographical Indications Journal names Pampore in Pulwama district as the main growing area, with smaller patches in Budgam and Srinagar districts and, in the Jammu division, around Poochal in Kishtwar district. The Press Information Bureau (PIB), the government’s release service, gave the same order on 9 November 2020: Pampore first, then Budgam, Srinagar and Kishtwar.

The Assembly replies put the cultivated area at 3,715 hectares, unchanged since 2010-11. Of that, 3,665 hectares are in Kashmir division and 50 in Kishtwar. The district administration’s summary of the mission schedules 3,200 hectares in Pulwama, about 86 per cent of the total. Kashmir Despatch reported in March 2022 that more than 30,000 families in 226 villages grow the crop.

What the 2020 GI certificate says

India’s GI registry lists Kashmir Saffron as application 635, filed on 3 December 2018 by the Director of Agriculture, Kashmir, in Class 30. The Geographical Indications Journal says Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology, Kashmir (SKUAST-K) and the Saffron Research Station at Dussu helped prepare it. The journal advertised the application as accepted on 1 January 2020. The registry gives the certificate number as 366, dated 1 May 2020, valid until 2 December 2028.

An official spokesperson announced on 25 July 2020 that the certificate had been issued. Lieutenant Governor G.C. Murmu said it would give Kashmir saffron more prominence in the export market and help farmers get the best price, the Tribune reported.

The journal’s specification sets out what the name stands for. It lists long, thick stigmas, a deep red colour, high aroma, a bitter flavour and high levels of crocin (the colour pigment), safranal (the aroma compound) and picrocrocin (the bitter compound). The applicant also says Kashmir saffron is “the only Saffron grown at an altitude of 1600m to 1800m” in the world. These are the applicant’s claims, as filed.

The journal names three forms. Lachha is stigmas dried straight off the flower, with their yellow tails. Mongra has the yellow tail cut off by hand, leaving only the red tip, and the journal calls it the highest quality, with 10 per cent more pigment. Guchhi is stigmas tied into small bundles with thread, grown around Poochal in Kishtwar.

Growers have given their own account of the effect. Bashir Ahmad of Pampore told Kashmir Despatch in September 2021 that he sold at Rs 1.40 lakh (140,000) a kilogram in 2019 and Rs 1.80 lakh in 2020, and credited the GI tag. One grower’s sales are not a market series.

A mission sanctioned on 19 August 2010

The Pulwama district summary gives the National Saffron Mission’s sanction date as 19 August 2010. The sanctioned outlay is Rs 400.11 crore, J&K Agriculture Minister Javid Ahmad Dar told the Assembly: Rs 315.99 crore from the Centre and Rs 84.12 crore from farmers. The mission aimed to cover the 3,715 hectares. A Rs 411 crore figure also appears in press reports and in the 2026 reply.

The Pulwama summary lists what the money bought. It paid for collecting, sorting and replanting corms (the underground storage stems from which the plant grows) at 5 tonnes a hectare, soil-health inputs, bore wells at Rs 20 lakh each with sprinkler sets, hot-air dryers, weeders, vermicompost units and field demonstrations. Across the Union Territory, 2,598.73 hectares have been rejuvenated, the 2026 reply says. In Pulwama district the summary shows 1,919.35 hectares replanted by 30 September 2019, against a target of 3,200.

Dar told the Assembly on 3 March 2025 that yield on the rejuvenated land rose from 2.50 kg a hectare in 2009-10 to a peak of 4.42 kg in 2023, and that stigma recovery rose from 22 grams to 28 grams per kilogram. By the February 2026 reply the Centre had released Rs 269.915 crore and total spending stood at Rs 321.37 crore.

The trading centre at Dussu

The mission’s best-known building is the India International Kashmir Saffron Trading Centre (IIKSTC) at Dussu, Pampore, which officials and ministers also call the Spice Park or Saffron Park. Kashmir Despatch described its facilities in March 2022: drying, grading and stigma separation, a collection centre it put at Rs 37 crore, coded crates so lots are not mixed, cold storage, and an e-auction. A quality laboratory runs physical and chemical tests using IS methods, and technicians assign grades under ISO standards and issue test certificates, the paper said.

The online auction opened in November 2020. Kashmir Reader reported on 13 November 2020 that two GI-tagged samples sold on the first day at Rs 227 and Rs 185 a gram (Rs 2.27 lakh and Rs 1.85 lakh a kilogram), with payment completed at once. The February 2026 Assembly reply credits the Saffron Park with lifting prices from Rs 80,000 a kilogram to Rs 2.20 lakh in 2021-22.

Five seasons of output and price

The Assembly was given this series for output, in tonnes:

The five seasons add up to about 90 tonnes, and the minister’s reply gave the total as 90.28 tonnes. The 2023-24 crop is the largest of the five, at a yield of 6.33 kg a hectare. The 2024-25 yield was 5.27 kg a hectare. Exports were 20.47 tonnes in 2023-24 and 17.82 tonnes in 2024-25, according to the Deputy Chief Minister’s reply reported on 18 February 2026. The country’s overall trade totals are in our report on India’s record 2025-26 exports.

Dividing the 2024-25 production value of Rs 534.53 crore by 19.58 tonnes gives about Rs 2.73 lakh a kilogram, by tuput’s arithmetic. The March 2025 reply gave the value of the 14.94-tonne crop of 2022-23 as Rs 291.33 crore.

How a flower becomes a spice

The GI Journal recommends planting the corms by hand between 15 and 30 August. The flowers open from the second half of October into the first week of November, depending on temperature and moisture, the GI Journal says, and family members pick them early in the morning on days fixed for each area. SKUAST-K’s package of practices says picking should begin shortly after dawn and finish quickly, because saffron left in the sun loses colour and flavour.

Each flower carries three stigmas, and each dry stigma weighs about 2.0 to 2.3 milligrams. The package says about 140,000 to 145,000 flowers make a kilogram of dry saffron, which is 140 to 145 flowers for each gram. Harvesting the flowers and separating the stigmas from them is, the package says, the most difficult operation in saffron cultivation. The stigmas lose about 80 per cent of their weight as they dry.

SKUAST-K’s research station at Pampore also publishes a package for its own selection, Shalimar Saffron-1, which averages 8 to 10 kg of stigma a hectare over a four-year planting cycle, against 4 to 5 kg for the farmers’ natural stock. The GI Journal records that traditional shade drying takes about 72 hours, that present practice recovers 20 to 22 grams of dry saffron per kilogram of fresh flowers, and that the mission set a benchmark of 30 grams.

What the figures leave open, and the official response

The cultivated area was 5,707 hectares before it settled at 3,715, the 2026 reply says. The same reply records a yield of 1.27 kg a hectare in 2000-01 and, after floods and dry spells, 1.50 kg in 2014-15. Output fell from 23.53 tonnes in 2023-24 to 19.58 tonnes the next year. Growers quoted by Kashmir Times in November 2024 described a snowless winter and a dry autumn, when September and October rain matters most.

Irrigation is the mission’s unfinished part. Of 124 community bore wells planned for 3,665 hectares, 85 have been handed to the Agriculture Department, and work on the other 39 stalled after too few firms bid, the 2026 reply says. It adds that farmers bear the running costs, which has made some reluctant to take the wells over. Kashmir Despatch reported in September 2021 that high-grade Kashmiri saffron had been mixed with cheaper Iranian saffron and sold worldwide, and a grower it quoted credited the GI tag and a testing laboratory at Pampore with helping. The Tribune quoted an official in July 2020 saying the GI certificate would stop adulteration. The Pulwama administration also directed officers in November 2019 to curb the conversion of saffron land.

Dar told the Assembly on 3 March 2025 that the government “has successfully halted the decline in saffron cultivation”, and announced an inquiry into the department’s work and new areas for expansion. Union Agriculture Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan said in Srinagar on 3 July 2025 that the Centre would set up a tissue culture lab and nursery for Kashmiri saffron, revise the National Saffron Mission to suit local conditions and form an expert team of scientists to improve productivity and reduce losses.