Export of Iranian saffron from Afghanistan to Europe and USA

A historical exporters’ report alleged that some Iranian saffron was moving through Afghanistan before reaching buyers in Europe and the USA, but it did not prove that every Afghan shipment had Iranian origin.

That distinction matters. Afghanistan grows and exports saffron in its own right. The issue raised by Saeed Ghaffarzadeh, identified in the archived interview as a member of the Saffron Exporters Union, was narrower: he said Iranian material was being diverted across the border when direct exporters faced severe freight, payment and regulatory obstacles.

What the Afghanistan export claim said

The older concern had focused on saffron corms being smuggled from Iran to Afghanistan and other neighboring countries for cultivation. Ghaffarzadeh said the pattern had changed. In his account, traders no longer needed to move planting corms in the same way because high volumes of dried Iranian saffron were instead crossing through the Dugharun border into Afghanistan.

He alleged that Afghan traders then sold the product onward to Europe and the United States. The stored report does not include customs declarations, invoices, batch numbers or buyer records for those shipments, so the route and volumes cannot be independently established from the interview alone.

Similar concerns were being voiced in Iran at the time. An IANA report from May 2018 quoted the head of the Birjand Chamber of Commerce saying that currency rules had changed the form of official exports and encouraged some saffron to be sent through Afghanistan before entering world markets. That report supports the existence of the broader complaint, not every detail of Ghaffarzadeh’s later account.

The reported fall in foreign purchases

Ghaffarzadeh said purchases of Iranian saffron by foreign countries had fallen by more than 50%. He connected that decline to a sharp change in airfreight costs and difficulty accessing export earnings.

As his example, he said 200 kilograms of Iranian saffron had previously been sent by Mahan Airlines to Scandinavia and Argentina for 7 million Tomans. In the conditions described by the interview, he put the freight charge for saffron to Europe at 700 million Tomans.

The hundredfold comparison is striking, but it needs boundaries. The article does not state the dates of the two quotations, whether they covered the same chargeable weight and service, or what exchange-rate and routing assumptions applied. It should be preserved as the exporter’s account of a logistics shock, not reused as a current airfreight quote.

Currency access and domestic export rules

Higher transport costs were only one part of the complaint. Ghaffarzadeh said transferring money to Europe was not possible and that traders had extreme difficulty gaining access to their dollars. In his view, the combination of payment barriers and domestic regulations made informal routing more attractive and increased saffron smuggling.

That is an explanation offered by one industry participant, not a measurement of illegal trade. A formal export can be observed in customs data; smuggling is harder to quantify precisely because it is designed to avoid the record. Any estimate needs a method, a period and evidence beyond the assertion itself.

The six-to-eleven-million-Toman price range

Ghaffarzadeh placed saffron at 6 million to 11 million Tomans per kilogram in the market he was discussing. As with the freight figures, this range is historical. The report does not specify a grade, harvest year, package size or exact quotation date.

A kilogram price can differ sharply between bulk pushal, sargol and negin material, and between farmgate, wholesale and export-ready lots. Currency movement makes an old Toman figure particularly unsuitable for describing the market now.

Afghan saffron and Iranian saffron are not interchangeable labels

A shipment leaving Afghanistan is not automatically proof that its saffron was grown in Iran. FAO’s official profile for Herat-Bastan saffron identifies production districts in Herat Province and describes a genuine Afghan thread-saffron product linked to local environment and practice.

Trade records also show Afghanistan participating directly in the market. World Bank WITS data based on UN Comtrade report that Afghanistan exported saffron in 2018 to destinations including the United States, Germany and other countries. Those data record the reporting country and trade flow; they do not by themselves prove the agricultural origin of every batch.

Three ideas therefore need to stay separate:

• Afghan-grown saffron is cultivated, processed and exported from Afghanistan.
• Transit or re-export means goods enter one country and later leave it, with the original provenance still documented.
• Misdeclared origin means the agricultural source is represented inaccurately. That is the serious allegation, and it requires shipment-level evidence.

What would verify the origin of a shipment

A credible origin check starts before the border. The lot needs records connecting the farm, harvest, processor, test result, package and export declaration. Batch identifiers should remain consistent when a shipment is divided or repacked.

Useful evidence includes purchase invoices, harvest and processing records, phytosanitary or customs documentation where applicable, laboratory quality results, packing dates and a clear chain of custody. A country name on a final box is not enough if the preceding records cannot be matched to it.

Laboratory analysis can help confirm that the contents are saffron and assess quality or adulteration. It should not be advertised as infallible proof of geographic origin unless the method has been validated against suitable reference samples for that specific question.

How exporters can reduce route and identity risk

The old report describes what can happen when the formal route becomes expensive, slow or difficult to finance. The durable response is not to cast suspicion on an entire neighboring industry. It is to make legitimate origin and movement easier to demonstrate.

Iranian exporters can retain the farm and processor identity on commercial documents, quote delivery terms clearly, keep payments and customs records aligned, and give buyers enough batch information to audit the chain. Importers should ask the same questions regardless of whether a shipment departs from Iran, Afghanistan or another trading hub.

The claim about Iranian saffron exported from Afghanistan to Europe and the USA remains an important historical warning about freight, currency access and traceability. Its numbers should not be treated as current, and its allegation should not erase Afghanistan’s documented saffron production. The responsible conclusion is that every batch needs evidence strong enough to support the origin stated to the buyer.