TEHRAN, Iran, June 23
Trend:
Iran's government paid $12 million to the saffron farmers of Khorasan Razavi Province in exchange for guaranteed purchase of saffron, Deputy Minister of Agricultural Jihad and CEO of the Organization for Rural Cooperative, Iraj Naseri Moghaddam said, Trend reports via IRNA.
Aside from this payment, the government owes about $44.5 million to the farmers, which will be paid soon, he said.
He also pointed to the supply of saffron via stock exchange and its export.
“One of the important policies of the rural cooperative network of this province is to boost the exporting of this strategic product," Moghaddam said. "Efforts are being made to make the unions of rural cooperatives and production units active in exporting saffron."
Naseri Moghaddam added that an important step to boost exports is purchasing saffron through the stock exchange.
According to IRNA, Last year, 9,502 farmers in Khorasan Razavi province delivered more than 68.825 tons of saffron to the Rural Cooperative Organization in the province.
In recent years, an average of 5,000 hectares have been added to saffron cultivation in Khorasan Razavi province annually.
Annually, 200 tons of products are harvested from 84,000 hectares of saffron farms in Iran, of which 78 percent is produced by Khorasan Razavi farms.