Menchukha: The tiny plot of land on a hill slope in Dorjeeling village near Menchukha town had been lying empty for several years before it turned purple last November. The crisp mountain breeze filled with a sweet, heady fragrance. It was Arunachal Pradesh’s purple bloom, its first saffron harvest. And it was celebrated as the path to new riches.
But for the women who picked the red stigmas of these flowers for the saffron, unceasing questions dogged their days and nights.
“What is this used for? Why would anyone buy it? I don’t think anyone will want this in Menchukha,” says 39-year-old Yapung Dolo,even as she tends to her farm just about 30 kilometres from the border.
Dolo is among 45-odd women who have worked on three plots of land, sowing a new saffron revolution in Arunachal Pradesh. They are helped by women who have understood the value of the crop, led by the North East Centre for Technology Application and Reach (NECTAR), an autonomous society under the Department of Science and Technology.
Kashmir’s saffron is the world’s most expensive spice. Priced more than Rs 3.25 lakh per kg, it’s more costly than silver, and Arunachal Pradesh is eyeing a piece of the pie.
Now, it comes down to marketing it. Barely 29 km from the border, Menchukha and the neighbouring Himalayan villages in Shi-Yomi district are completely cut off from the rest of the country.
In January this year, Doche Chukla (55) travelled with Kesang Naksang (55) and Yajun Samchung (26) over 180 km away to West Siang district for the state’s first Arunachal Pineapple Festival, carrying a bounty of fresh produce from their farms. Among the organically grown kiwis, cinnamon, millets, and pulses, a tiny packet of saffron takes centre stage at their stall in Bagra village. They’re not selling it, not yet—NECTAR is still hammering out pricing details. But the women plan to spread the word that this precious spice will soon be available.
“We have never done this before, and many women do not know what they are growing. But together we are very hopeful that we will become successful saffron farmers,” says Chukla with a broad grin.
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Cultivating against all odds
But growing saffron in this remote location comes with a mountain of challenges. In September last year, a sudden cloudburst in the nearby Lhalung village triggered a devastating flood, severely damaging two hydel power stations in the Shi-Yomi district. Since then, the electricity supply to Menchukha township and its adjoining areas has been disrupted.
The town currently runs on generators. The only functional mobile network tower operates for just two hours every day—getting cell phone signal is a matter of luck. Knocking on doors is still the most reliable form of communication.
Farming in this mountainous area is labour-intensive, unlike in the northern plains with vast stretches of flat land.
“We cannot use tractors or machines in our farms. Everything is done by hand,” says Yasar Chije (30), another farmer in Dorjeeling, who has taken to growing saffron.
To sell their produce, most farmers have to walk down to Menchukha town with bags of vegetables on their backs. Roads leading to the region are bumpy, almost unmotorable. With no bus or train network, farmers who don’t have a car simply walk. More often than not, the lone petrol pump in the town is dry.
“Farming has so many challenges in Menchukha that many plots of land are lying empty,” says Arun Sarma, director general,NECTAR. Their hope is to encourage the farming of high-value, organically grown crops.
What’s more, Menchukha is on the cusp of change. Over the last five years, the number of tourists has only gone up. According to Dhan Ali, a cab driver, people started coming here after Bollywood actor Salman Khan visited in 2018 for the Menchukha Adventure Festival. The steady trickle of tourists has given rise to the business of homestays in the town. While it’s another source of income, for the saffron farmers, it’s also a way to spread the word.
“Everyone is constructing homestays and hotels – so we can get work in the town. We sell most of our farm produce in Menchukha,” said Yasar Chije (30), a farmer in Dorjeeling.
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The saffron experiment
In the early days of the saffron growing experiment, saffron corms (bulb-like underground stems) from Kashmir were sent to Dirang and Seijosa, but Menchukha was found to be the most suitable. As saffron is a fall-blooming sterile crocus, propagation takes place through its corms or underground stems.
When Yapung Chije, block mission officer at Menchukha for the Arunachal State Rural Livelihoods Mission (ArSRLM), was contacted by the NECTAR team, she suggested that a federation of women’s self-help groups participate in the initiative.
“One of our biggest challenges was to convince the women to start saffron cultivation. It was very hard because they did not know anything about saffron,” Yapung Chije said. She convinced Yachak Chije, a farmer, to allow the self-help group to use her one-acre plot of land for this purpose.
It took the farmers almost a month to prepare the land for saffron cultivation, which included tilling, removing rocks, and creating mounds of earth in straight lines.
“Not everyone in our SHG is young. We had mothers working on the field with their newborn babies as well,” said Yapung Yarung, a school teacher and member of the self-help group. “But when we went to plant the saffron, we had no idea how to do it.”
Chije, the block officer, arrived in October with NECTAR project fellows Sunita Bhattarai and Baiamonlangki Sutnga. They lived with the farmers, demonstrated cultivation steps to follow and also informed them about post-flowering management of the field. The four-day planned stay extended to 12 days as rains and snow blocked the roads out of Menchukha.
The saffron grown on the field is completely organic.
To prepare organic fertilisers, the farmers spread a leaf, locally known as paso or taong, in the pigsty, which almost every farmer in Menchukha has.
“This gets mulched and mixed with pig dung as the animals walk and roll over it. Once it’s properly mixed, we take this mixture and use it as fertilisers in our fields.” Yarung explained.
Apart from the yield of the flowers itself, another marker of successful cultivation of the saffron crop is that the corms – which look like garlic cloves – multiply in the soil. These corms can then be separated and planted again.
Farmers can now increase the cultivation area without any help from the NECTAR teams.
Of the three trial plots currently used for saffron cultivation, one is kept under a makeshift greenhouse – or polyhouse, which was brought to Menchukha from Assam.
The plot under the polyhouse cultivation is thriving.
“That is good news for us,” said Sarma. “Arunachal has high rainfall and if saffron is thriving under the polyhouse, it means that we can easily protect it from the rains.”
But some parts of the plantation in the open have been pecked out by chickens. Despite being told to regularly weed out the plots, the farmers – yet unaware of the market potential of the saffron crop – have let weeds take over some parts of the farm.
Marketing and future plans
From the yield of the very first bloom in November, half of the produce was taken by the NECTAR team for testing.
“We are conducting quality assessment of saffron on parameters such as quantification of bioactive compounds (safranal, crocin, and picrocrocin), total phenolic and flavonoid content, and antioxidant potential,” NECTAR fellow Bhattarai told ThePrint.
They are still waiting for the test results. The remainder of the crop is with the women who are figuring out how to market their product within Arunachal Pradesh. NECTAR is already working on the packaging and marketing of the product. The farmers have been informed that NECTAR will help promote the product, create a supply chain, and establish a market for the end product.
Yapung Yarung has been conducting her own ‘market surveys’ by visiting local markets and speaking to residents.
“The villagers think that nobody used saffron in Menchukha – but I realised that is not true. Saffron strands are used by the Buddhist monasteries in some rituals,” she said.
There are at least three monasteries in Menchukha – and Yarung is confident that if the spice becomes available within the town, the richer inhabitants will definitely buy it.
“I’ve seen a box with just six strands of saffron sell for Rs 30,” she added.
The women in Menchukha are saving the produce from the first yield to sell them at various fairs and festivals all over the state.
After the success of the trials, many other farmers and heads of other government departments and missions want some of the saffron corms from the Menchukha farmers – but having put in efforts for two years, the pioneers of the trial do not want to lose control over the market.
“We are the ones who took all the effort and the risks. Should we not now have the advantage over others?” Yarung said.
Along the road to Alo from Menchukha, once the sun sets, a group of youth from Shi-Yomi district stand by the road, holding their phones up in the air—searching for a network, hoping to get a glimpse of the world outside their district.
Some try to download movies that they can later watch in their free time back in the villages.
“There are no industries and young people do not have enough government jobs. We are hopeful that saffron farming, along with other products like organic kiwi and cinnamon, will bring more money in farming,” Chukla said, as she displayed the fruits of her SHG’s labour at her stall at the Pineapple Festival.
For now, people in Menchukha are waiting for electricity and communication to be restored, and the arrival of more tourists.
“One day, we hope that when people travel to Arunachal, their families will tell them to bring them some saffron from Menchukha,” Yarung said.
(Edited by Prashant)