site.btaThe Saffron Hopes of Tobacco Growers

The Saffron Hopes of Tobacco Growers

Kurdjali, Southern Bulgaria, January 7 (Valentina Stoeva of BTA) - With subsidies for tobacco growing drying out, farmers in the southern Bulgarian region of Kurdjali where tobacco used to be a staple crop, pin their hopes on a new crop, saffron. Some enthusiasts believe that this country has the potential to become among the top five producer countries in the next five years.

One of them is 26-year-old Ali Suleyman of the village of Glouhar, who believes that sooner or later saffron will replace tobacco. He has a small saffron patch of 0.12 ha to see how it goes before he plants a larger area. He paid 3,000 leva for saffron bulbs which he bought from international suppliers. He knows that bulbs can also be purchased locally at prices ranging between 45 and 120 leva/kg. Last October he harvested and dried a small batch of saffron to figure out the costs and revenue.

"The difficult part is selling it because of the problems with the drying and the packaging," he says and explains that there is no equipment in Bulgaria for the two processes. He is adamant that if equipment is available, huge opportunities will open up for Bulgarian growers. "Demand is big and I believe that we will get a good price for our produce," he says.

Ali was hooked on saffron through Hassan Tahirov, the saffron pioneer in the Rhodope area. Tahirov has made it his mission to make the crop popular among local farmers through a national saffron association he has founded.

He explains that the strongly fragmented and small land plots in the area are perfect for growing saffron.

Knowing that 90 per cent of the global saffron production is in Iran, Tahirov has contacted Iranian experts. About a month ago they visited the Rhodope region and saw the saffron plantations of an agricultural research centre and of local farmers in the village of Glouhar. They took soil samples to make sure the soil is right.

Soil is even more important than climate when it comes to saffron.

The Iranians offered to invest in a saffron packaging plant in Bulgaria. "We will trim the red filaments and dry Iranian saffron here and use the old Iranian clients for the saffron that will be grown in Bulgaria," Tahirov says.

He believes that with a little Iranian help, Bulgaria can become one of the five leading world producers in the next five years. 

At a recent forum on saffron growing, the head of the local agricultural advisory service, Galina Angelova, made it clear that no subsidies are available at this stage for this crop. The only option is to claim support under a programme for development of rural areas.

Angelova strongly advises farmers to wait for the results from ongoing field experiments with saffron growing before they make any large-scale investments.
     
The field tests have been on for about a year now in Kurdjali. They have so far established that the local climate and soil conditions are good but with a perennial as saffron it will take 3-4 years to know for sure that the crop will bring good return on investment.

In the Kurdjali area, saffron is grown mostly by small farmers. Larger plantations exist in the north of the country.

Unlike Bulgaria, neighbouring Greece has a government policy aimed to encourage saffron growing.
     
About 150 flowers are needed to make one gram of dried saffron. Around 60 per cent of the bulbs produce one flower each in the first year of plantation and two flowers after that.

The world saffron output is around 300 t annually. The leading producers are Iran, Spain, Greece, India, Azerbaijan, Morocco and Italy.