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Middlemen undermine Afghanistan’s female saffron growers

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Summary of story from Globe and Mail, September 27, 2011

Farmers outside  the western Afghanistan city of Herat are beginning to replace their standard spring crop of heroin with saffron flowers.

And in just three years, membership of the Ghoryan Women Saffron Association, an all-female co-op near Herat, has ballooned from 72 to 480 women, according to founder Sima Ghoryani.

Saffron, the most expensive spice in the world, sells for between $2,000 and $4,000 per kilogram in global markets. Opium sells for as little as a tenth as much.

But the development of saffron crops across Afghanistan is creating a unique set of cultural barriers for the women who grow it.

As with other agricultural products, women do much of the field work, including the harvesting.

The product they grow is high quality. The problems start when they try to take their saffron beyond local markets without selling to middlemen.

“When women want to compete with bigger traders in places like Herat, they are undermined and cut down by male traders,” said Saeed Parto, director of research at Afghanistan Public Policy Research Organisation (APPRO), a non-profit think tank. “They say, ‘It’s women’s work to grow saffron and dry it. Our job is to sell it.’”

The solution, he said, will not come from government. Instead, he hopes international donors will help the women’s associations.

“We need to get them linked to borders beyond Afghanistan,” he said.

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