«Athis is my “treasury”, but in recent years it is not filled as it used to be” says 45-year-old Haris Mavrommatis, pointing to the warehouse of his house in the village of Ano Komi, which he has converted into a drying area for Kozani saffron, known worldwide as saffron, the “red gold” as growers and residents of Western Macedonia call it. The boom brought to farming by the economic crisis, as many young people turned back to the traditional agricultural sector of their country, is now followed by the looming withering due to climate change. In recent years, saffron growers have seen their production quantities decrease and attribute the problem to the dramatic change in the microclimate, which from the 17th century until today has been extremely favorable for this specific crop that thrives only in this region of Greece .
“We do not support the product”
«We are the biggest croc producing country in Europe, but things have not been going well in recent years. The main reason is climate change in the region. Snowfall in winter is almost non-existent, rain is scarce and the temperature has risen. Due to the drought our harvest has decreased by at least 50%. Four years ago my production was about 600 grams per hectare, last year it was down to 200 grams and this year I predict it will be even less. We have a product first and we don’t support it. The state or the European Union must help in some waysays Mr. Mavrommatis, today treasurer of the Compulsory Cooperative of Crocus Producers of Kozani, which has approximately 1,000 members from the village of Krokos and 20 other neighboring villages, who currently cultivate 5,200 acres of land.
In the fields, which look like a colorful sea of beautiful plants with deep blue-purple petals and purple spots that give off an almost intoxicating aroma, at this time dozens of land workers are bent over as the harvest began at the end of October and will last for about 20 days. This year, however, the first samples are not encouraging for growers. The older ones find that the plant is “stressed”, as they say, due to the change in climate in the area. “The weather was cooler in previous years and helped the plant grow. Now it neither rains nor snows. This plant is very hardy, but it seems to be… stressed. It looks like he’s been giving his soul the last few years» describes the 65-year-old Eftychia Tzidimopouloswho works in the field with her husband.
“We harvested with…snow”
«The climate has changed dramatically. It neither snows nor rains in our area anymore. Now imagine that last year there was a producer with 45 acres who only got 1.5 kilos of production. 15 years ago in some fields I had a yield of 2.5 and 3.5 kg per hectare! But then we had a snow harvest and now the weather is like summer» adds the 57-year-old croc producer Alekos Matiakis.
According to local growers, around 50,000 red spots are needed to produce 100 grams of Greek saffron. Cultivation is particularly laborious, since all stages of production, from harvesting to packaging, are done by hand. In the 1980s, according to the Cooperative’s data, total saffron production in the region had even reached 12 tons, while last year it barely exceeded 1 ton.
“Revival” due to financial crisis
As the president of the Kozani Shot Producers Cooperative explains in “Vima”. Vassilis Mitsiopoulos, the crop boom in the 1980s was followed by a 50% decline in total production in the 1990s, and an abandonment of the crop was recorded from 2000 onwards, which revived during the economic crisis. “We had grown to just 1,000 acres in the 2000s due to the economic prosperity of the time. However, due to the economic crisis in 2011 and 2012, the crop revived, but now it is again seriously threatened by the climate crisissays Mr. Mitsiopoulos.
According to the president of the Cooperative, the problems of reduced production, which are attributed to climate change, are now a deterrent for new growers to enter the sector.
“Maybe we’ll go further north”
«In 2017 with the same hectares we had a production of 3.8 tons, while last year we barely touched 1.1 tons. The climate is getting warmer, the rains are erratic throughout the year and at the wrong times, the snowfalls are almost non-existent now and all this results in the reduced yield of the Kozani saffron. If the yield of the crop continues to be this low, I imagine growers will either abandon it or be forced to try to move to higher and more northern areas of our county. The oxymoron is that olives are now grown in our prefecture, something that 20 years ago was unthinkable due to the climatic conditions that prevailed in the area» points out Mr. Mitsiopoulos. “We used to harvest in jackets and caps and now we wear short sleeves and sun hats» adds his 75-year-old mother, who continues to work in one of the family’s fields.
“Markets are open, but…”
Growers are required to deliver their product to the Cooperative’s facilities with a moisture content of up to 10% and the money they receive is around 2,000 euros per kilo. 70% of the products produced by the Cooperative are exported to 28 countries, with the most “strong” markets being Switzerland, France, America and Vietnam. In recent years, the Cooperative has reduced the sale of bulk quantities of saffron to a minimum as the quantities produced are standardized and packaged, according to the required safety and quality standards, in the facilities created by the growers to increase their profits and thus face the problem of reduced production. “Strong markets have now opened up as important partnerships have been agreed, but we are keeping orders low because we cannot fully meet our customers’ needs due to reduced production” notes the Kostas Katsikaronis, director of business development of the Kozani Shot Producers Cooperative.
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