Chad Fish/AP

The remnants of a large balloon drift above the Atlantic Ocean just off the coast of South Carolina, with a fighter jet and its contrail seen below it, Feb. 4, 2023. The downing of the suspected Chinese spy balloon by a missile from an F-22 fighter jet drew crowds reacting with a mixture of bewildered gazing, distress, and cheering.

A rare opportunity for the United States and China to revive critical dialogues blew up in a plume of smoke this weekend as a U.S. Air Force jet downed a suspected Chinese spy balloon off the South Carolina coast.

Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin said China’s government was using the balloon, which had traversed American territory for seven days, “to surveil strategic sites in the continental United States.” Beijing, claiming the balloon was a civilian airship used primarily for meteorological research and blown off course and into the U.S. by “accident,” protested the U.S. strike as “a clear overreaction.”

Regardless of the balloon’s mission, the crisis was exacerbated by a failure of real-time communication and led Washington to postpone the Feb. 5-6 visit to Beijing of U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who would have been the most senior American official to visit China in more than four years.

“Why didn’t they [Chinese officials] tell the Americans, ‘Sorry, our balloon drifted into your territory?’” says Yun Sun, a senior fellow and co-director of the East Asia Program and director of the China Program at the Stimson Center. “Did they underestimate the severity of the situation?”

Indeed, the balloon incursion underscores a glaring lack of crisis management mechanisms, communications channels, and, ultimately, trust between China and the U.S., experts say. The result is an ever-increasing risk that mistakes or miscalculations between the superpowers will spiral into conflict.

Alex Brandon/AP

Pentagon spokesperson Air Force Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder speaks during a media briefing at the Pentagon in Washington, Feb. 3, 2023, the day before a U.S. Air Force jet downed a suspected Chinese spy balloon.

“It is a very dangerous reality that we’re dealing with,” says Ms. Sun. “This is just a balloon, right? If we’re talking about, say, a skirmish or incident in the Taiwan Strait, then it’s going to be much more severe than this.”

Why China won’t pick up the phone

Nowadays, when the Pentagon picks up the hotline to dial China’s military during a crisis, often all it hears is an extended ring tone.

From silent communications channels to canceled meetings, U.S.-China military contacts are at a low point, even as tensions between the two countries make mechanisms for managing crises – such as the balloon incident – all the more vital, experts say.

“Improving crisis prevention and crisis management has never been more important in this relationship, and it has been derailed, most recently by the Chinese,” says Michael Swaine, director of the East Asia Program at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft in Washington.

Beijing canceled regular military-to-military dialogues between the two countries last year to protest the August visit of then-U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan, the self-governed island off mainland China’s southern coast that Beijing claims as a province. “There is no doubt that a possibility of a misfire will increase” as a result of the severed dialogues, China’s official Global Times newspaper commented at the time.

Three U.S.-China hotlines set up starting in 1997 still exist, but their effectiveness has proved limited, in part because Beijing doesn’t always answer.

“The Chinese PLA [People’s Liberation Army] has made it quite a pattern, especially when bilateral relations are not good,” says Ms. Sun. “Picking up the phone is a political statement” and requires approval from senior leaders, she says. “The Chinese don’t see this mechanism for what it is; they see it as a political bargaining chip.”

Indeed, compounding these issues are starkly different Chinese and American understandings of crisis prevention and management, experts say.

Taiwan Presidential Office via AP/File

U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (left) speaks during a meeting with Taiwanese President President Tsai Ing-wen (right) in Taipei, Taiwan, Aug. 3, 2022. Beijing protested this visit by canceling regular military-to-military dialogues between China and the U.S. last year.

For its part, the U.S. sees crisis management as a way to de-escalate and defuse potential conflicts. Beijing’s strategy aims first to prevent crises by simply demanding that the U.S. military avoid operating near China. In cases of a crisis, it holds that any communications should be used as a form of coercion to deter military action.

“They are seeing the U.S. as driving the crisis, so the U.S. needs to take responsibility,” says Dr. Swaine.

“Hotlines are not meant to resolve the crisis, but to empower higher-level organs within the PRC [People’s Republic of China] to signal resolve, assign blame, and stall until Beijing stakes out a position of maximum pressure and leverage over the United States,” says a Rand Corp. analysis of the hotlines published last July.

The U.S.-China disconnect over crisis management contrasts sharply with Cold War-era practices, experts say. The U.S. and former Soviet Union “had rules of engagement in the sea and air, even over mutual surveillance [by planes],” Miles Yu, director of the Hudson Institute’s China Center, said in a C-SPAN appearance Sunday. But, he said, “China has consistently refused to get into this managerial crisis mode.”

Will the balloon blow over?

Despite profound differences and distrust, Beijing and Washington had appeared poised to address restoring not only the military-to-military channels but also dialogues on counternarcotics and other key topics during Secretary Blinken’s visit. 

That still may happen after the balloon incident blows over. Mr. Blinken told Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi that the “high-altitude PRC surveillance balloon in U.S. airspace” was “an irresponsible act and a clear violation of U.S. sovereignty ... that undermined the purpose of the trip.” But he added that he was prepared to visit Beijing “as soon as conditions allow.” Mr. Blinken was expected to meet Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

David "Dee" Delgado/AP/File

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken meets with China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi during the 77th United Nations General Assembly, Sept. 23, 2022. Mr. Blinken was scheduled to visit Beijing and meet with Chinese leader Xi Jinping this week before the balloon debacle postponed the talks.

The U.S. Navy has begun recovering debris from the balloon – an effort that will reveal more information about the balloon’s capabilities and China’s intentions, White House spokesperson John Kirby said Monday. China said another of its balloons – spotted over Latin America – had deviated far off course.

“The Chinese have been developing more uses for these big balloons,” including for launching weapons tests, says Dr. Swaine. “So it’s not surprising to find other balloons floating around in other places.”

The U.S. and China both have strong motivations to stabilize relations and build upon progress made when President Joe Biden met with Mr. Xi on the sidelines of the Group of 20 meeting in Indonesia in November.

“The U.S. is focused on managing the relationship, preventing it from deteriorating to the point of overt confrontation and conflict,” particularly over Taiwan, says Drew Thompson, a visiting senior research fellow at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore. 

China’s focus on recovering from a major COVID-19 outbreak and reinvigorating its slowed economy requires easing tensions with the U.S. and other trade partners. Three years of self-imposed isolation under Mr. Xi’s stringent “zero-COVID” policy have taken a toll on China’s heft in the Indo-Pacific, according to the Asia Power Index, an annual ranking of 26 countries released by the Lowy Institute on Sunday.

Smoother ties between Washington and Beijing could help set the stage for Mr. Xi to attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation leaders’ meeting in San Francisco in November.

“Neither we nor the Chinese are going to dominate each other ... and neither of us is going to capitulate to the other, so we’ve got to find some kind of middle ground,” says Dr. Swaine. 

Surrounded on all sides by blinking screens, Jim Moore helms the deck of his computer fix-it shop, MotherBoards Tech. 

Here from his home-based workbench the self-described “total geek” has steered his business for nearly 25 years. Meanwhile, the small repair shop – once a staple of American life – has all but vanished around him.

The reason, he says, is a question of whether independent shops like his even have a right to exist in an era when proprietary software is embedded in nearly every possession.

“Companies now control their own products,” says Mr. Moore. “You don’t own nothing.”

Mr. Moore’s living-room control deck in the Savannah suburbs is in the vortex of a growing effort in the United States to wrest power back from corporations by establishing a fundamental right to repair your own stuff – whether a tractor, a phone, or a Harley-Davidson motorcycle.

Ongoing efforts to enshrine that right in roughly half of U.S. states are soldered to a debate that goes back to the ancient Greeks: What does it even mean to own a thing? The answer goes to a deep-seated sense of fairness – once you buy something, it should be yours. But for a nation of do-it-yourselfers, where shade-tree mechanics were long a common sight, it also touches on America’s ability to refuel its natural ingenuity.

Perhaps as the nature of ownership changes, society will change with it. But the new raft of laws is seeking to stake out some place for traditional views of ownership even in an increasingly digital world.

“When we talk about ingenuity as an American value, the founding fathers called it the American experiment,” says Adam Savage, the former co-host of “MythBusters,” a long-running television show that tested theories to show whether they were real or urban myth.

“Experimentalism is taking things apart and putting them back together,” he adds. “The idea of having something that you’re absolutely not allowed to do, that shows that the definition of personal space is changing.”

What changed?

Not so long ago, camera shops were ubiquitous on Main Street. Vacuum cleaner repair people did brisk business. Shade-tree mechanics wrenched away without fear that they would void the warranty on the beast they bought.

But nearly a quarter century after the U.S. Congress passed a law called the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the question of whether you, yourself, can fix what you own – and if not, is it really yours? – is increasingly a real one.

The legislation was intended to thwart hackers by giving software firms the power to protect hard-earned intellectual property. But critics say the law has also empowered massive corporations to engage in unchecked rent-seeking behavior.

There are printers for sale now with self-kill commands that are activated after a certain number of jobs – so-called enforced planned obsolescence. The automaker Mercedes-Benz uses a subscription service to unlock a speed regulator – meaning lead-foots have to pony up $1,200 to achieve “acceleration increase.” When you buy a BMW, the seat warmer isn’t really yours. It’s unlocked with a $18.99 a month subscription.

That über-American machine, the Harley-Davidson motorcycle, is no longer an amateur mechanic’s meditation. Even though U.S. law forbids it, the company still says the bike’s warranty is void if it is repaired with after-market parts or by noncertified mechanics. These days, Harleys rumble thanks to a computer.

It is largely not a matter of whether a thing can be repaired, critics say, but whether a company can make more money by forcing you to go to a dealer for repairs or encouraging you to buy a new one. When asked, 7 out of 10 Americans say that isn’t right, according to a 2022 Morning Consult poll.

In some cases, “yeah, you’re soldering something that’s the width of a human hair, but ... there is nothing on that circuit board you can’t replace and repair,” says Paul Roberts, right-to-repair activist in Belmont, Massachusetts.

A lot of people, including many lawmakers, he says, “think there are magic spells inside your iPhone and that it’s totally different from a mechanical kitchen mixer or your old Ford from the ’70s.”

Growing pushback

But that view has begun to change. New York became the first state with a right-to-repair law at the turn of the year. Similar bills are moving through half of U.S. state legislatures. Maine voters will make the call in a referendum on right-to-repair later this year.

Smartphone makers like Apple and Samsung have vowed to ease their grip on proprietary tools in order to let third-party vendors – including consumers – to fix their phones. In many cases, the key is getting companies to turn off locks that prevent devices from working with third-party parts.

Seth Perlman/AP/File

Equipment manufacturer John Deere and the American Farm Bureau Federation have signed a memorandum of understanding that ensures farmers and ranchers have the right to repair their own farm equipment.

John Deere on Jan. 8 signed a memorandum of understanding with the American Farm Bureau Federation that will allow farmers to self-diagnose problems – using tools that require subscriptions. John Deere machines roll across about 40% of U.S. farms.

In ancient Greece, Plato and Aristotle were at loggerheads over whether ownership is a social good. Modern political theory pits ownership-based societies of capitalist countries against the collective economies of socialism.

The late libertarian Robert Lefevre, author of “This Bread is Mine,” once wrote that the yearning for ownership “is one of the most fundamental facts of life” – that exclusiveness and individualization is driven by a longing for identity.

Given that background, Ata Jami set out to test how ownership impacts behavior. The research assistant professor of marketing at Kellogg School of Management in Evanston, Illinois, used a well-known cubicle prop: the NPR coffee cup.

Participants were given cups at the beginning of the study. Some were told the mugs were theirs to keep; others weren’t told anything. The people who felt ownership of the cups exhibited stronger pro-social behaviors, including charity, than those who didn’t know they owned the cups. But Professor Jami also found that threats toward ownership caused people to become more territorial – and thus more likely to engage in selfish behaviors.

That dynamic may be fueling the right-to-repair movement, Professor Jami suggests. The roots of it, he says, can be traced to when software writers stopped selling CDs to consumers and turned instead to subscriptions.

“Maybe because software is not a tangible object, it didn’t hit consumers from the beginning” that they weren’t owners, he says. “But when they got the news, when they could see tangible examples of objects that they used to own and don’t own anymore, they feel this more strongly.”

Old tractors in demand

For Walter Schweitzer, the realization came in the middle of a Montana hayfield.

“Farmers love technology,” says Mr. Schweitzer, who raises beef cattle near Geyser, Montana. But when his equipment broke down and it became clear that the repair would be far costlier than it need be if he could tackle the job himself, he grew angry. Then, he took action.

Last year, Mr. Schweitzer lobbied for a right-to-repair bill, which failed, he says, after industry lobbyists parachuted into Helena to fight it. They claimed the legislation was repetitive and could leave techs out of work and farmers worse off.

So Mr. Schweitzer did what many of his fellow farmers are doing. He bought a 25-year-old tractor. When a transmission light blared, he found a $40 part and spent two hours in the barn fixing it himself.

“A lot of people are now trading in their new tractors for older ones,” he says.

For Mr. Savage of “MythBusters,” the inability to fix one’s own purchases goes to how economies see and treat human beings. “Companies profiteering from every last inch of their thing, it’s leading to a system in which we are no longer customers, but products using things that are also products to sell things to ourselves,” he says. “I don’t view that as Utopia.”

Here on Wilmington Island, Mr. Moore remains skeptical that the right-to-repair movement will find purchase. For one, he says, many Americans are too busy to tinker. And in his view, corporations have grown so powerful that they scoff at attempts by consumers to reestablish sovereignty over their stuff.

That means, he says, “us fix-it guys, we’re living on a hope and a prayer.”

Editor's note: The date of John Deere's memorandum of understanding with the American Farm Bureau Federation has been clarified. 

Courtesy of Ned Castle

In-person retreat with White Men for Racial Justice community members in Richmond, Virginia, on June 26, 2022. During sessions like these and other programs, white men ask questions and practice skills for constructive conversations about race with white people and people of color.

The focus of Black History Month is and always should be the achievements of Black Americans. But if you’d consider being radically inclusive for a moment, I’d like to give a shoutout to some white men this year. This is a necessary exception because the continued segregation of white and Black Americans’ shared history on Native American land is robbing all Americans of a comprehensive telling of our past, creating lots of misinformation in our present, and threatening our hopes for a more united tomorrow.

This lack of historical integration limits our knowledge of each other and creates fears and divisions that truth and proximity can help us heal. 

One week after the 2020 murder of George Floyd, a Black man, at the hands of a white Minneapolis police officer, two white men from Pennsylvania wanted to see things change. They decided that change would start with them. Kevin Eppler and Jay Coen Gilbert gathered more than 100 white men from across the country for a video conference about how they could learn to have a role in dismantling racism and the culture and systems of white supremacy that reside within themselves, their communities, and their country. 

That kicked off White Men for Racial Justice (WMRJ), a brave space for white men to unlearn misconceptions and prejudices and to learn ways to show up in multicultural spaces with skills that could help them engage within and across racial lines using curiosity, not judgment.

An earlier example

In 1946, physicist and Nobel laureate Albert Einstein, who was also a member of the NAACP, spoke at Lincoln University, a historically Black college. As Isabel Wilkerson records in her book “Caste: The Origins of our Discontents,” he said, “The separation of the races is not a disease of the colored people, but a disease of the white people.” WMRJ is addressing this long-standing need that has plagued our society.  

“For many white men, our first instinct is to say, ‘I’m not a racist,’” says Mr. Eppler, “but we don’t know what we don’t know. … We assume and accept many things in our society as normal. … There’s so much we don’t question.” 

A graduate of Harvard Divinity School, Mr. Eppler has studied extensively the intersection of religion and social justice and has worked as a curriculum designer for organizations wanting to build racial and cultural competency within their workplaces. “I know Black, Latin American, and feminist liberation theologies, but I had never examined myself critically,” he says. “I had never asked myself the ways I could be carrying around a white supremacist’s mindset. … I was unaware of the cultural influence white supremacy had on me.”

Courtesy of Kevin Eppler

Kevin Eppler is co-founder of White Men for Racial Justice. “The work of racial justice is lifelong work," he says. "And it’s work that leads to joy."

Mr. Eppler; Mr. Gilbert, co-chair of the business-led change network Imperative 21; and dozens of volunteers offer online training sessions, online and in-person peer circles, and immersion weekends that focus on issues of racial justice. During these programs, white men share perspectives they’ve long held, ask questions they’ve felt they couldn’t ask, and practice skills that can help them have more constructive conversations about racial issues with white people and people of color.

“Our workplaces and communities are more diverse,” says Mr. Eppler, who grew up on the white side of Baltimore and now lives in a racially diverse community. “Racial justice, equity, and diversity are part of today’s conversations. … Many white men worry about saying the wrong thing.”

Central to WMRJ’s program is a practice from liberation theology that calls for reflection on the world’s structures and the ways those structures might be oppressive. “Our actions must be informed by deep reflection,” says Mr. Eppler. “At WMRJ, that looks like a continuous cycle of reflection that leads to action, that leads to reflection on that action that influences the next action.” 

A community of practice

Providing opportunities to participate in informed action is part of WMRJ’s mission. Its members are assigned to peer circles based on their geographic location, allowing the men to work as a group on racial justice issues in their area. “We’ve had men go to school board meetings to support the teaching of a more complete racial history of our country,” says Mr. Eppler. “We’ve funded and participated in a conference on racial reparations, encouraging our churches, synagogues, and meetinghouses to come, learn, and participate in the discussion. In another location, some men are involved in a city’s gun violence conversations. Issues of race were being discussed and immigrant populations were becoming a target.”

WMRJ’s curriculum includes works from African American, Native American, and Australian Aboriginal writers and educators. Staffed by volunteers, WMRJ pays its equity advisers, Black professionals who collaborate on the curriculum and help facilitate workshops and weekend immersion experiences. “They challenge us so that we don’t become a book club,” says Mr. Eppler. “It’s not just learning about voter suppression; it’s also what are we doing to fight against it.”

WMRJ has received some pushback for being a group exclusively for white men, but as Mr. Eppler explains, “We have to do our own work.” Often the lone white man at workshops about racial justice, he notes, “One of the advantages of our program is that we don’t have to get everything right in this space. Here we can wrestle with our perspectives alongside others who are wrestling. We hear statistics and can look at evidence that doesn’t feed into narratives we’ve long held on to. … Why hadn’t I learned about redlining, …why didn’t I know that the GI Bill that my grandfather and my father received was systemically denied to Black veterans?”

Closing in on its third year, WMRJ has garnered more than 400 men into its ongoing community of practice. “We’re not giving out certificates or degrees,” says Mr. Eppler. “The work of racial justice is lifelong work. And it’s work that leads to joy. That’s not a word commonly used to describe working on issues of racial justice, but it’s the joy that comes from authentic relationships, … from learning new ways to relate to people, … from being able to laugh at ourselves, … from telling our stories without being judged.” 

For me, at least this year, Black History Month is not only the recognition of Black achievement. It’s also an acknowledgment of those who are working to end the segregated telling of America’s history that makes Black History Month a necessity.  

Abdul Majeed Wani uses a flashlight to carefully inspect his blooming saffron crocus plants in red plastic baskets placed on iron racks. He’s deliberately deprived this small room of natural light, covering the windows to “maintain the quality” of the crop. 

Mr. Wani is among the first farmers in Kashmir to embrace this relatively new technique of growing saffron indoors, stacked in vertical columns. “It is the third year I am growing saffron inside my house, and the results are very promising,” he says with excitement. “We have got better produce both in quality and quantity.” 

Mr. Wani comes from a traditional saffron-growing family from Shaar-i-Shalli, a hamlet located on the foothills of Zabarwan mountains. Most of the people in his village and the surrounding areas have been growing the prized spice for centuries. Saffron is grown in a few places around the world, requiring unique kinds of soil and specific climatic conditions. Kashmir is the second-largest producer after Iran, and saffron cultivation is seen as a symbol of Kashmiri culture. 

Although the demand for Kashmiri saffron – which can cost $10,000 per kilogram (2.2 pounds) – is growing, the region has witnessed a steady decline in its production. Farmers and industry experts blame the fast-growing construction in and around the saffron fields, as well as climate change and regional conflict. But government support and breakthroughs in indoor cultivation are offering farmers hope.

“The new technique has raised huge hopes in us,” says Javaid Ahmed, another saffron farmer from Pampore who’s embraced indoor farming. “No matter how erratic rain or how early we receive snowfall, there is now more probability for our saffron to bloom in better ways.” 

Agricultural intervention

In 1996, more than 14,000 acres of land were used to grow saffron in Kashmir, according to Department of Agriculture data. Over the next couple decades, that number dwindled to 6,000, and production decreased by nearly 90% from 16 metric tons to 2 metric tons, much of which is attributed to climate change. 

Sharafat Ali/VII

Saffron crocuses typically bloom in November, but require very specific soil and weather conditions to flourish. Although Iran produces nearly 90% of the world's saffron, experts believe Kashmir's crop is superior due to its deep intensity of color and flavor. It is used in a variety of products around the world, including food, medicine, and cosmetics.

“In the past 20 years, we have been witnessing untimely rainfalls and extreme weather events, like sudden rise or fall in temperatures,” says Mr. Wani. In 2014, devastating floods cost Kashmir’s saffron industry about $127 million.

Climate change isn’t the only issue disrupting saffron farming. The Himalayan region is marred by conflict, with India and Pakistan both controlling portions of Kashmir while claiming the majority-Muslim territory in its entirety. In the Indian-administered areas, clashes between separatist rebels and Indian security forces have cost thousands of lives and brought huge distress to the people, who are largely dependent on farming. 

Still, there is cause for hope. Since the government launched its “Mission on Saffron’’ in 2010, traditional farmers have gained access to new resources, including the India International Kashmir Saffron Trading Centre (IIKSTC) in Pampore. IIKSTC aims to streamline saffron production, with facilities to separate and dry stigmas (the part of the crocus from which the spice is derived) for auction, as well as provide better marketing avenues and secure higher prices for farmers.

The center fixes auction rates based on stigma quality, and certifies the authenticity of Kashmiri saffron sold in India and abroad. This sort of quality regulation is critical, say farmers, to combat the proliferation of cheaper “Kashmiri saffron” knockoffs and preserve the spice’s reputation as the best saffron in the world. 

In addition to these post-harvest supports, the government is working to safeguard remaining farmland from development and provide farmers with better irrigation facilities, such as tube wells and sprinklers. Meanwhile, scientists in the region have stepped in to reduce their reliance on the land altogether. 

How to grow a saffron plant – indoors

Traditional farmers plant their saffron corms, or bulbs, in the fall. The saffron crocuses should bloom the following November, at which point farmers can pluck its flower and harvest the bright red stigma. This cycle repeats for about 3 to 5 years before the original corm decays, leaving behind new bulbs to be planted.

Sharafat Ali/VII

Niyaz A. Dar, assistant professor in plant biotechnology at Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology, is working on a tissue culture of saffron with fellow researcher Azra Khan. With the help of tissue culture technique, high quality plants are produced under in vitro conditions. This technique is also used to produce clones from one single parent, and is part of broader research aimed at preserving Kashmir's saffron industry.

Yet erratic weather can affect that year’s bloom, leading to massive losses if a farmers’ crop fails. Climate changes also result in fewer new corms, explains Mr. Wani, leading to a gradual decline in production.

Hoping to safeguard his family’s farm, Mr. Wani signed up for training at the Advance Research Station for Saffron & Seed Spices, a government initiative affiliated with Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology (SKUAST) in Srinagar. There, he learned how to protect his saffron plants during their most vulnerable period.

“Under this new method, we remove the saffron corms from soil a few weeks before the harvest time and place them in these trays inside a room, which has no direct sunlight,” says Mr. Wani.

The sheltered flowers bloom as usual, and after the saffron is harvested, he puts the corms back in the soil.

“The corms need a chilling period of more than 1,000 hours, and the temperature should be below zero degrees [Celsius],” says Bashir Ahmad Elahi, a scientist at SKUAST and head of the research team studying local saffron trends and solutions.

Sharafat Ali/VII

Bashir Ahmed Elahi, head of the saffron research team at the Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology, inspects crocus flowers in Dussu, south of Srinagar. After a tray of saffron corms bloom indoors and the flowers are harvested, they must be reburied outdoors to undergo "a chilling period of more than 1,000 hours," Dr. Elahi explains.

Despite promising results, there are some apprehensions among farmers, as the saffron corm recommended for indoor cultivation is quite large, weighing more than 10 grams. 

“We don’t get that type of corm usually,” explains Mr. Ahmed, noting that about 80% of the saffron corms available to farmers are too small for indoor use. 

Still, he and other farmers see value in pursuing a hybrid of traditional and vertical farming.

“In a small room, one can produce saffron that would be traditionally cultivated over one kanal [about 3 basketball courts] of land,” he adds. 

Hope beyond Kashmir’s saffron fields

Kashmir’s 2021 saffron yield reached a two-decade high of 15.04 metric tons, which farmers partly attribute to good weather, but also better irrigation methods as well as indoor cultivation and other government supports. Available reports on 2022 harvests suggest further growth, though the government has yet to release any official data.

Sharafat Ali/VII

After going through various processes such as stigma separation and quality evaluation, saffron is spread onto trays for drying at the India International Kashmir Saffron Trading Centre. The center aims to streamline saffron production and help secure higher prices for farmers.

The improving prospects for Kashmir’s saffron farmers have kindled hope at a time when the region’s other major economic source – apple farming – is in crisis, due to similar challenges of erratic weather, plummeting prices, and poor connectivity to Indian markets. 

While the vertical farming techniques aren’t directly applicable to Kashmir’s numerous orchards, some say the saffron industry’s progress is proof that with government support and a bit of innovation, farmers can survive difficult times. 

For their part, the local horticulture department has already been promoting high-density apple varieties from Europe, which yield more produce and have an earlier harvesting period, helping farmers avoid the early snowfalls that can decimate apple crops.

And as for the future of saffron, Dr. Elahi says the successful vertical farming trials offer hope that other people in Kashmir, even those living in urban areas, can cultivate saffron in their homes. As his team starts training a new cohort of traditional saffron farmers, their experiment is attracting interest from beyond the region, too. 

“Some entrepreneurs from outside Kashmir were successfully able to grow saffron with this new technique in different parts of India on a smaller scale,” says Dr. Elahi. “This gives us hope that if we take care of temperature, light, and humidity, we can produce saffron beyond Kashmir.”

AP

Women not wearing Islamic headscarves check the sunglasses of a street vendor in Tehran, Iran, Jan. 7.

Last week, Iran’s ruling clerics began a 10-day anniversary celebration of the 1979 revolution that created the Islamic Republic. Yet nearly five months into mass protests against the regime, public enthusiasm for the commemoration is, to say the least, quite low. In fact, the mass abstention is an example of what has marked the protests: the use of nonviolent resistance.

The protests, which erupted in September after police killed a woman for the way she wore a head covering, have been largely peaceful. They are also largely led by women, many of whom defy a mandatory hijab law. This has raised the moral legitimacy of the protesters’ cause while delegitimizing the regime – especially its horrific use of violence to suppress the protests.

In December, the government executed the first protester (on a charge of “corruption on earth”). More than a hundred protesters reportedly face the death penalty while thousands remain in jail. A poll in December found 81% of Iranians do not want the Islamic Republic while 67% believe the protests will succeed, offering the biggest challenge to Iran’s theocrats in decades.

Officials now worry about defections in the military, and, according to the Shargh news agency, the regime has consulted one of Iran’s leading scholars of peaceful protests, Saeed Madani – who was jailed last year. His books have also been banned. Yet that has not stopped the regime from seeking advice from the sociologist on how to deal with the uprising.

Another scholar of nonviolence, philosopher Ramin Jahanbegloo at the University of Toronto, says Iran is undergoing a revolution of values, led by the values of compassion and tolerance, which lie at the heart of nonviolent tactics.

Those values are feminine, reflected in the women who lead the protests. “For the first time since the Islamic Revolution of 1979, the world is dealing with a feminist revolution in the Middle East,” Dr. Jahanbegloo wrote in The Indian Express. The slogan for the protests is “women, life, freedom.”

The poll in December by GAMAAN, a nonprofit foundation in the Netherlands, found a third of Iranians have engaged in acts of civil disobedience, such as taking off headscarves or writing slogans. Only about 8% say they have committed acts of “civil sabotage.” Nearly half joined mass strikes, and three-quarters approve of boycotting certain products.

Their cause was bolstered Sunday when a Grammy award for social change was given to Iranian singer-songwriter Shervin Hajipour. His song “Baraye” (“For”) became an anthem for the demonstrators in expressing their peaceful aspirations. Far more Iranians probably watched the award presentation than have participated in the anniversary of the Islamic Republic.