Production of more than 270 kg of saffron in Hamedan

Saffron production in Hamedan exceeded a reported 270 kilograms in the reference year, then a provincial development plan proposed adding 40 hectares of saffron fields annually. Taken together, the two historical reports show a crop moving from small family plots toward larger production, local processing and a recognisable Hamedan identity.

The figures belong to different reporting periods and should not be read as current output. Hojjatollah Shahbazi, then director of horticultural affairs in Hamedan’s agricultural administration, attributed the 270-kilogram result to both a larger planted area and a higher average yield.

How Hamedan reached more than 270 kg

The production report recorded 87.4 hectares of saffron across 229 farm units. Cultivated area had grown by about 30 hectares over two years. Malayer accounted for the largest share, with 36 hectares, while Kabudarahang had the smallest reported area at 1.7 hectares.

Output in the preceding year was placed at 197 kilograms, followed by more than 270 kilograms in the reference harvest. Shahbazi also said average yield had increased from 3.8 to 4.3 kilograms per hectare.

Those area, output and average-yield figures do not fully reconcile if all 87.4 hectares were productive in the same season: 87.4 hectares at 4.3 kilograms would imply a larger crop. The report does not say whether some fields were newly planted, not yet productive, or counted on a different basis. The safest reading is that they are rounded administrative figures that describe the direction of growth, not a field-by-field production ledger.

Small farms shaped the province’s market challenge

Most of Hamedan’s 229 saffron holdings were smaller than one hectare, with reported production of roughly one to two kilograms per unit. That structure made direct export difficult. A substantial share of the crop instead left the province for Razavi Khorasan, where it was processed and packed.

The local objective was therefore broader than increasing harvest weight. Officials wanted enough consistent production to support a Hamedan brand and a local processing unit. That would allow more cleaning, grading, packaging and market value to remain near the growers.

Shahbazi described Hamedan’s climate as favourable for saffron quality and sought technical cooperation with Razavi Khorasan growers. Climate and cultivation can influence the crop, but a claim of superior quality requires testing. Commercial saffron is assessed through measurable characteristics rather than its province name alone.

A five-year plan proposed faster expansion

A later report, headlined with a 178-kilogram harvest from an earlier reference year, focused on a proposed development plan. The agricultural organisation had submitted a target to the governorate to add 40 hectares of saffron each year for five years. The body of that source did not document how the 178-kilogram title figure was calculated, so it is retained here as a dated reported total rather than treated as a precise baseline.

An annual 40-hectare increase would be significant compared with the 87.4 hectares in the 270-kilogram report. Success would depend on more than planting corms: new fields need suitable soil and water, growers need practical training, and added output needs drying, grading and sales capacity. Expansion without those parts could increase volume without creating the local value the plan was meant to deliver.

Hamedan’s wider horticultural base

The expansion proposal sat within a large provincial horticulture sector. Shahbazi reported 120,000 registered nursery seedlings, 77 hectares of greenhouses and 4,500 hectares of medicinal plants. The greenhouses were said to have capacity for more than 27,000 tonnes of produce and five million cut flowers.

He also reported national production ranks for walnuts, grapes, raisins and medicinal plants, with coriander and fennel among the important medicinal crops. These were period-specific official claims and can change from year to year. They are useful here because they show the infrastructure and grower experience around saffron, not because those other crops determine saffron quality.

Across Hamedan, the account placed total agricultural land at 716,000 hectares, including 72,000 hectares of orchards, and estimated 144,000 agricultural operators. The scale of that wider sector helps explain why officials saw saffron as one specialised crop within a diversified rural economy.

What sustained growth requires

The original 270-kilogram report gave a net-income estimate of more than 15 million tomans per hectare and said establishment costs were concentrated in the first year, with lower costs over the following six years. That is historical currency and cost information, not a present-day return forecast. Corm prices, labour, yield, inflation and selling price can change the result substantially.

For Hamedan, the durable opportunity is the combination of suitable fields, trained small growers and local post-harvest capacity. Later production reports show that the province continued to expand; our article on Hamedan’s reported 700-kilogram saffron harvest provides a later point in that timeline. The earlier 178-, 197- and 270-kilogram figures remain valuable as markers of how that development began.