A GIFT WORTHY OF KINGS

The Romans used it as a fragrance and antidote, and the followers of Buddha used it to dye their clothes. In ancient times, it was even used to cure cataracts. Oriental medicine provides thousands of recipes in which it is used as a means of feeding all cells in the body, especially the blood. It was used as a drug, pain killer and tonic. It was contra-indicated only for pregnant women, but it was still the best gift for shahs and kings. We are talking about saffron - one of the most wonderful gifts of nature - and which is regarded as "red gold".

It grows in Azerbaijan as well. However, for some reason, this precious plant has not become an important part of the revenues of the country's agrarian sector. If production was correctly organized, revenues from exports of saffron could even exceed oil revenues…

The most expensive spice in the world

Apart from Azerbaijan, saffron is also cultivated in Afghanistan, Georgia, Iran, Mexico, Pakistan, the USA, Japan, as well as in northern Africa, Spain and France. The industrial harvest reaches dozens and even hundreds of tons. The largest manufacturer and supplier of zafaran (the Azerbaijani name for saffron) to the international market is Iran - a country which exported more than 200 tons of this product, worth 101 million dollars, last year. According to news agencies, Iran is currently producing 90 per cent of the world's saffron, which brings this country large revenues from the sale of the most expensive food supplement. Even Spain cannot compete with Iran at the moment. The price of one kilogram of Spanish saffron is 1,400 euros, while the best Iranian saffron costs 350 euros. In order to improve the competitiveness of the product, government agencies in Iran are helping to set up a consortium of saffron manufacturers. The aim of the consortium is to stimulate the production of high quality saffron by increasing procurement prices and to increase the quality of processing and packaging in view of Spain's experience and national traditions. Iran is trying to penetrate the promising markets of China and Japan. 

The popularity of Iranian saffron is growing because scientists from the Scientific-Research Centre of Mashad University have proved the positive effect of this plant extract on people's health. In their opinion, saffron increases the body's resistance and rejuvenates it, helps reduce blood pressure and blocks the development of cancerous tumours, because it destroys cancerous cells. It has been established that the annual volume of Spanish saffron sales exceeds the harvest. As a result, Spain receives more money from the sale of Iranian saffron than Iran does itself. Fake Iranian saffron has emerged on the international market. It is produced mainly in China and Afghanistan where saffron production has been launched. In experts' opinion, in the long-term, Afghanistan might become a serious rival of Iran on the international saffron market.

Zafaran remains in the last century?

According to various sources, saffron has been cultivated in Azerbaijan since the 9th century. Our ancestors produced more of it and exported it to the European market. At the beginning of the last century, saffron was actively cultivated not only in Bilgah, but also in other Abseron villages rich in the fertile soil upon which the bulbous saffron grows; the harvest yield is in September and November - at the end of golden autumn. The statistics for that period show that the volume of production of high quality saffron reached 1,000 kg and more. Under the Soviets, a state farm called Zafaran was set up in the village of Bilgah. The plantations were cultivated according to agro-technical rules based on the scientific recommendations of leading specialists in the sphere of plant-growing, while scientists tested the quality of the product in a laboratory. Saffron production was regarded as a beneficial and profitable business. The farm produced about 80 kg of saffron every year, while this figure reached from 150 to 200 kg in the whole country.

After the collapse of the former Soviet Union, land reform was carried out in Azerbaijan and the Zafaran state farm was closed. The saffron laboratory went out of existence at the same time. During the reform, 130 ha of land allocated to saffron cultivation were distributed among residents of the village. However, none of the land owners cultivates the precious saffron. Today this plant is cultivated only by amateurs in their country gardens. In Bilgah, land owners cultivate saffron on a territory of 16 ha, in Masalli - 3 ha and in Ucar - 2 ha. The annual production of saffron is about 80 kg.

As we can see from the statistics, saffron production is not a priority for the Azerbaijani Ministry of Agriculture. According to experts, Abseron saffron has much more essential oil than the best foreign saffron, from Iran, and even from Spain. This product is reputed to be a "red gold" and was much more expensive than "black gold" at the beginning of the 20th century. Incidentally, its production reached 1,000 kg per year in that period. Nowadays it has fallen to less than a tenth of that.

All hope rests on farmers

The price of one kilogram of saffron on the world market is 2,000 dollars. It is expensive because field production is quite labour-intensive. According to farmer Canpoland Cafarov, from the village of Col Hasimxanli in Sabirabad District, who has been growing saffron for seven or eight years and selling it at markets in Baku, one corm of saffron produces two or three flowers. There are no seeds. "We gather the stigma of the flowers in dry weather, usually in the afternoon throughout the whole period of flowering. The stigma is pulled out of newly-opened flowers, after which we dry them on small sieves for about 15 minutes and then put them in tin cans. I am the only person in Mugan who grows saffron. People from neighbouring districts and even from neighbouring states come here to buy it," the farmer said in an interview with R+.

He said that in order to obtain one kilogram of dry saffron, it is necessary to pull out the stigmas of about 200,000 flowers. Both in ancient times and today, saffron is harvested only manually.

If all we have said is in favour of saffron, then why don't we increase its production on farms? According to the director of the Azerbaijani Agriculture Ministry's Abseron District experimental station of subtropical plants, Calal Mammadov, the annual growth in saffron prices on the international market has prompted scientists of the agrarian-scientific centre of the Azerbaijani Ministry of Agriculture to direct their scientific research at reviving Azerbaijani saffron. "After the collapse of the USSR, the volume of production began to fall in spheres like saffron-growing. And when privatization was carried out and new land owners emerged in the village, we could not interest them in saffron-growing. According to our information from regions of the country, there are only 21 ha of land for saffron-growing. The republic's farms harvested only 78 kg of saffron last year," Mammadov said.

Today saffron is sold in separate packs of 2 or 3 grams each, which is very convenient. Mammadov says that 90 per cent of milled saffron is fake, but fraudsters can fake stigmas as well. In the past, fraudsters were executed for faking this spice - and not only in the east. In Germany, for example, fraudsters were set on fire.

It must be noted that in the first year, you cannot get more than 6 kg of saffron from one ha of land. In addition, you have to renew the bulbs every four years because saffron is only the stamen of the crocus flower, which is harvested for two weeks a year. Every flower has a maximum of three stamens. The crocus opens only for two hours. In order to ensure that the spice has a good aroma in the future, it is necessary to harvest it several hours before it opens - at dawn. As was the case in ancient times, this is done manually, observing all agro-technical rules.

According to the strategy developed by the Ministry of Agriculture for 2008-2012, it is planned to expand the saffron plantations, Mammadov said. In order to draw attention to this sphere, farmers and village businessmen will be given beneficial credits. The Ministry of Economic Development is interested in developing this ancient craft. We can only hope that land owners themselves will become more interested in growing this precious plant.