Afghan farmers turn to saffron as replacement for their opium crops

The Sunday Telegraph (U.K.) ^ | 04/04/04 | Hamida Ghafour

[balrog666]

Electrical banana
Is bound to be the very next phase.

[VadeRetro]

I'm still trying to figure out how to smoke salmon. They won't stay lit.

If you don't bite off the end, it won't draw.

[VadeRetro]

Wind-a velocity nil.

35 years and I never knew. I knew "Wind of the blossom to nil" didn't make even the tiniest bit of sense but I couldn't hear anything else.

[paulsy]

"I'm still trying to figure out how to smoke salmon. They won't stay lit.
If you don't bite off the end, it won't draw."

Listen. Just 1) leave the head on; 2) fill the mouth; 3) draw from the other end : )

[VadeRetro]

Remember, the anal pore is nowhere near the tail. If you can't remember that, bite off the tail.

[ApplegateRanch]

The figure was "about $100/KILOGRAM difference. What does that translate to /ACRE? If one harvests more pounds of sap per acre than pounds of saffron filaments (and only the stigma of the flower is used) then it is a vast difference. If the DRIED pistles are sold vs semi-wet balls of gum, the wieght differential/acre should be enormous. That multiplies the "hundred dollars/year" tremendously.

Sap also runs & is collected over a period of weeks, like maple sap. Saffron crocus flowers once per growing season.

The other differential is huge: 20 US cents per gram vs 4 Pds Sterling per gram in Britain. IF the farms could form a co-op to process & package, and get in on the mark-up, then it might make a real difference.

If the difference in what the famer makes per crop is a small enough differential, then the peace of mind factor you mention kicks in; if not, then losing a crop every few years to govenernment spraying becomes just a cost of doing business, same as early frost, drought, etc. OTOH, of crop-loss if nearly guarenteed, then that also would make the biggest difference in what he grows.

Then again, ask yourself, just how much is even $100/year when annual income is only a few hundred to begin with.

I'm just saying, the article did not provide the real figures needed to make an informed judgement.

[paulsy]

"Remember, the anal pore is nowhere near the tail. If you can't remember that, bite off the tail."

You can actually wrap the tail around your ear like a pipe cleaner, hands free. Hmmm...

[DentsRun]

I used to love to make risotto (rice, butter, Paremsan cheese, onions and saffron). But the last time I went to buy saffron, I had to get the store mananger to unlock the special section of the spice rack where they kept it. Even then, it came in a glass bottle but when you opened it up, what you found inside was a little glassine envelope with a few fine grains of red saffron. Well, screw that, I said. After that I switched to fettuccine Alfredo.

[Allan]

Last summer
I bought an enormous bag of saffron
in a department store
in Ankara, Turkey.

It cost about $15 US.

$15 will buy a tiny bottle of saffron in North America.

The mark-up is about 10,000%.

[DentsRun]

The mark-up is about 10,000%.

It seems to me that about 20 or 30 years ago saffron used to be (relatively) cheap in this country. I remember buying it in little red plastic capsules about the size of a small stack of pennies. I don't know why something that has been around for thousands of years suddenly skyrockets in price. I know it's not just people watching Julia Childs.

[bayourod]

So you're saying I shouldn't switch to saffron?

[greasepaint]

This story is BS.
The yield per acre of saffron, is what?
The labor, compared to opium, is what?
Opium pays, thats why people grow it.
This is a charade.

[gd124]

Apparently you can get 35 pounds per acre of opium vs 8 to 12 pounds per acre of saffron