95% of saffron harvest is done manually
The Deputy Minister of Jihad for Agriculture, stating that Iranian saffron needs a modern market, said: in 95% of the areas under saffron cultivation, the crop is harvested manually.
Hossein Shirzad said at the first gathering of national and provincial saffron unions in Iran: Last year, with the purposeful intervention of the Central Organization of Rural Cooperatives of Iran, 68 tons of saffron was offered in the commodity exchange, which is the highest record during the saffron exchange sale. Once again, we were able to direct capital market activists to the modern saffron exchange market by motivating profits and the attractiveness of the stock market, a phenomenon that has been unprecedented in the history of Iranian agriculture with this volume of transactions and sales.
He said: According to the statistical information of the Central Organization of Rural Cooperatives, about 97,000 hectares of the country’s agricultural lands are allocated to saffron cultivation with a small-scale exploitation system and mainly in the form of irrigated cultivation. This product is produced in all provinces of the country (albeit in small quantities); However, about 92,000 hectares of cultivated area of ??this crop are located in the provinces of Khorasan Razavi, South and North.
Shirzad pointed out that the yield per hectare of saffron during the last 10 years, has almost a slight growth and the average yield for the whole country (in the top 9 provinces) is equal to 389 kg and for the three above-mentioned provinces was 20% higher, clarified: 95% of the areas under saffron cultivation, this crop is harvested manually and non-mechanized, and the export of this product in packages higher than 30 grams, in 2016 amounted to 210 tons and worth 278 million dollars, a trend that in 1397 It has grown to more than $ 350 million.
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