Saffron will put more (spicy) food on the table

That old saying that a “boer maak ’n plan” (a farmer comes up with something) is certainly being proved valid these days as South African farmers look to expand their horizons and grow exotic, hitherto untried crops.

The latest is saffron, a sought after spice, which fetches as much as R250,000 per kilogram on the market.

After initial experiments some years ago, the crop has now attracted more attention, as a number of farmers started sowing the “red gold” this year, with a reported 95% success rate.

The saffron flowers are what is harvested from the plant and their tiny threads are what produce the spice.

The plant is particularly suited to this country, where our main cash crops need an average 500mm to 800mm of rainfall annually to thrive, whereas saffron can cope with as little as 250mm a year rain.

The arid parts of our country a considerable portion of our land mass have this sort of annual rainfall.

Saffron is, however, an example of practical, out of the box thinking about how to produce crops and goods which are appropriate to our circumstances.

It will put more (spicy) food on the table than “pie in the sky” dreams of developing our own world-beating technology.