Building a new Afghanistan, one flower at a time

Keeble McFarlane

Saturday, February 04, 2012

It's the most expensive vegetable product in the world, is absolutely legal, and out-prices by far even the highly lucrative illegal drugs. Only a small amount - around 300 tonnes - is produced in the world each year, yet this item is coveted for its culinary properties and is now being marshalled in the struggle to revive Afghanistan's economy. That ill-starred country in western Asia is known not only for its history of strife, but also as the world's largest source of opium, used to produce heroin. The drug is derived from the poppy, which grows easily in Afghanistan's challenging terrain. Now, as the government in Kabul and its external allies try to stamp out the poppy, they are looking to the cultivation of saffron as one lucrative replacement.

Employing coercion and terror, the Taliban puts impoverished families to work growing the poppy and pays them a tiny fraction of its eventual yield. Still, money is money, and even the pittance the growers get is more than anything else easily available. But now, in the area around the western city of Herat, fields are beginning to sprout saffron, which fetches 10 times the financial yield of poppies. It is also a crop which can help empower women, who traditionally do much of the growing and harvesting of crops. Some of the helper governments and non-governmental organisations encouraging the development of saffron also see this as a way to usher women into the much more lucrative world of marketing, traditionally the preserve of men.

These governmental, university and donor agencies have done much work in Afghanistan in recent years to establish saffron as a stable crop. They have helped women form several producer associations and have supplied saffron seed bulbs, equipment such as dryers and electric generators together with guidance and training in saffron production. There are, of course, a number of obstacles to overcome, but the agencies have promised to stick with the initiative because of its importance to Afghanistan's future. In addition to achieving stable production, they have to ensure a sustainable level of quality, launch proper systems of processing and packaging as well as establishing international awareness of Afghanistan as a high-quality source of saffron.

One of the major hurdles exists right next door - Iran is by far the world's largest producer of saffron - accounting for around 95 per cent. Crocus grows in a belt from the western Mediterranean across to the Kashmir, but small amounts are grown in many countries.

There was a time when Afghanistan was an important producer and exporter of products like dried fruits such as raisins, as well as grapes, almonds, pistachios and pomegranates. In fact, up until the late 1970s, it supplied one-fifth of the world's raisins and held a dominant position in the supply of pistachios and dried fruits. According to a policy paper published last year by the Afghanistan Public Policy Research Organisation, intermittent periods of conflict since the end of the 1970s combined with periodic droughts severely crimped that productive capacity.

The policy study finds that saffron has a number of advantages apart from its high value - typically, saffron of the highest quality can fetch as much as US$11,000 per kilogramme in the world market. Get that - eleven thousand! It notes that saffron is well suited to the arid conditions found in western and north-western Afghanistan. Even though it is labour-intensive, saffron does not compete with other crops for irrigation and maintenance, and harvesting takes place for two to three weeks in October, well after other crops have been reaped. Producing a distinct purple flower, the crocus needs minimal fertiliser and only two periods of irrigation for each growing period. This is ideal for an area where water is scarce, especially for small farmers.

Saffron consists of the three stigmas from the flower of a member of the iris family known as crocus sativus. It is a low-growing plant which can withstand dry and cold conditions and which needs lots of sunshine, all of which apply to Afghanistan.

To extract the tiny thread-like stigmas from the flowers is highly labour-intensive. It takes as many as 170,000 flowers and 400 hours of work to produce one kilogramme of dried saffron. The reddish-orange stigmas are between two and four centimetres long and must be removed by hand, then dried quickly before decomposition or mould set in. But it is all worth it, since those tiny fibres contain a number of compounds which make it a highly desirable spice. The colour comes from crocin, and about 150 other volatile compounds supply the distinctive aroma and taste together with the essential oils which account for saffron's therapeutic properties.

Cooking aficionados extol the virtues of saffron in stews, soups and famous dishes like bouillabaisse, a French concoction made of several types of fish, seafood and vegetables, with saffron as a star ingredient. My favourite use of saffron is in aromatic rice central to many Indian meals. The first time I visited London, 40-odd years ago, my friend the late Colin Rickards took me to one of his favourite Indian restaurants where he ordered this dish of rice, stained yellow by saffron and giving off the most inviting aroma from the cardamom and cloves it was cooked with.

Saffron has a long and storied history. The name comes from the Arabic word zafaran, which means "yellow". In Greek mythology, a handsome mortal name Crocos fell in love with a beautiful nymph named Smilax, who rebuffed his favours and he was transformed into a purple flower. Many centuries ago it was used as a dye and in India, where its colour is considered the epitome of beauty, saffron is the official colour of the robes worn by Buddhist holy men. In imperial Rome, saffron was said to have been used to supply scent for baths and public halls.

The documented history of the plant's cultivation goes back more than three millennia. Using selective breeding, the original cultivators looked for flowers with unusually long stigmas and the eventual product was the sterile plant we know today.

It doesn't produce seeds and has to be propagated by separating the little corms or bulbs produced by the root. Human beings were using wild versions of the crocus for its colour and in their remedies and magical potions, way, way back into the mists of pre-history.

Considering the long history of using the plant to treat a variety of ailments, modern scientists are investigating whether it can be the source of new drugs; in particular, whether it has antioxidant properties, can suppress cancer, prevent harmful mutation of cells, boost immunity and protect the eyes from the effects of bright light and retinal stress.

We can only salute the efforts of those who are fighting off the evil warmongers and narco-traffickers and are trying to empower women in Afghanistan, one of the most backward countries in the world. It is only through such initiatives that some recognition and meaning can be given to the large numbers of lives lost and the vast amounts of treasure that the decades of conflict have consumed in that unfortunate land.

keeble.mac@sympatico.ca

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Building a new Afghanistan, one flower at a time