Production of Organic Saffron in Iran; Challenges and Approaches

Organic farming (OF) is a promising environment-friendly, sustainable and profitable system for saffron production. It is an extensive system which deals with all of the qualitative and quantitative aspects of agricultural produce, in all steps of production cycle from farm to fork. Iran is considered to be the largest producer of high-quality saffron in the world and has a great potential for transformation from conventional to organic saffron production system. A significant part of saffron production in Iran is in agreement with OF principles, but as for therules and standards of this production system, it is only considered as “semi-organic”. With this regard, we present the principles, advantages and challenges of organic agriculture system. The current situation of Iran in case of saffron production and the pathway to produce organiccertified saffron is also discussed.

کلیدواژه ها:

Saffron ، Organic Farming ، Sustainable Agriculture ، Iran