Saffron is expensive SMS with the gossip mongers!

Merchant checking saffron beside a phone and precision scale

Saffron is expensive SMS with the gossip mongers! was the translated headline of a 2016 Iranian market report. In clearer English, its claim was that rumour-filled text messages from speculative traders had helped push domestic saffron prices up by about 700,000 tomans per kilogram in two months. The allegation came from Ali Hosseini, then identified as a member of Iran’s National Saffron Council, in an interview attributed to ISNA.

This is a historical account, not a warning about a current message campaign or a live price quotation. The archived translation repeatedly turns tomans into dollars and makes some sentences sound more certain than the evidence allows. The underlying figures and concerns can still be explained without repeating those errors.

What Ali Hosseini said about saffron and SMS rumours

Hosseini described people with no role in saffron farming or exports entering the market with large amounts of money. According to him, they circulated text messages and sensational claims, created a false sense of urgency and encouraged others to believe that saffron should cost more.

He blamed that atmosphere for a jump from about 4.6 million tomans per kilogram in Farvardin—the first month of the Iranian year—to about 5.3 million tomans when the report appeared. The difference is 700,000 tomans per kilogram. The surviving English text calls these amounts dollars, but that is a translation error: a domestic quote of “four million 600 thousand” rising to “five million 300 thousand” matches the toman-denominated market language of the report.

The interview attributes the change to the previous two months. It does not provide a series of verified transactions, message samples, sender identities or a counterfactual price. The safest conclusion is therefore that Hosseini believed SMS-based speculation was aggravating the rise, not that the article independently proved every part of that causal claim.

The April export figures behind the concern

Hosseini also said that about nine tonnes of saffron had been exported in April to 45 countries. The translated sentence mentions about US$1,800 and a 29% increase over the previous year. Its grammar is damaged, so it is unclear whether US$1,800 was intended as an average export value per kilogram and whether 29% referred to price, volume or total value.

Those distinctions are important. Nine tonnes is a physical quantity. An average dollar value per kilogram is a unit value. A 29% year-on-year increase needs a named metric and a matching period. Without the original customs table, combining all three into one confident export-growth statement would create a fact that the source does not securely contain.

Research indexed by FAO AGRIS on Iranian saffron export demand found that relative export price had a negative relationship with export demand. That supports the commercial logic behind Hosseini’s worry: if domestic replacement costs rise after an exporter has negotiated with an overseas buyer, maintaining the order can become difficult.

Why an exporter can be squeezed by a sudden price rise

An exporter often agrees on quantity, quality, delivery date and price before assembling the whole shipment. If the domestic buying price rises sharply in the meantime, the exporter may have to pay more than expected to deliver the promised goods. The foreign customer may not accept a matching increase, especially when competing origins or suppliers are available.

Hosseini said this was already disturbing exports and could lead to a significant decline compared with the previous year. The report does not provide the later annual result, so the forecast should remain a forecast. It does preserve a real business problem: an exporter cannot quote reliably when the reference price is opaque and rumours can move asking prices faster than contracts can be renegotiated.

Who benefits when quoted prices move?

The article’s subheading says that overnight gains for dealers exceeded what farmers might earn over a lifetime. That is rhetoric rather than a measured income comparison, but it conveys Hosseini’s main objection. He believed the largest short-term benefit went to traders who bought before the jump, not necessarily to the growers who had already sold their crop or the exporters committed to an earlier price.

A higher market quote does not automatically mean a higher farm-gate return. Timing, grade, moisture, payment terms, storage risk and bargaining power all affect the amount a grower receives. Research on price transmission in an Iranian saffron market has examined whether changes move symmetrically between wholesale and retail levels. Its local case study should not be treated as a national rule, but it reinforces the need to identify which level of the chain a quoted price describes.

The allegation about saffron corms and Afghanistan

Hosseini went further, alleging that some of the same brokers bought saffron bulbs—more accurately called corms—and sold them to Afghan growers. He argued that this helped develop a competitor to Iranian production and complained that no effective tool was being used to stop the practice.

The archived report gives no shipment records, names, border data or legal classification for those transactions. It cannot show how much material moved, whether particular movements were lawful or whether every buyer had the motive Hosseini assigned to them. The allegation remains part of the original article, but it should not be converted into a present-day accusation against Afghanistan, traders as a group or any unnamed person.

A text message is not a verified market price

Private messages can spread quickly, particularly in a market where lots differ in quality and many transactions are not publicly reported. The Food and Agriculture Organization’s work on agricultural price volatility stresses that normal price fluctuations become damaging when movements are large and unexpected. Better market information cannot remove every change, but it can make a rumour easier to test.

Before treating an SMS, chat message or social post as a saffron price, ask for:

the date, time and physical market;
the exact saffron grade and crop year;
whether the number is per gram, mesghal or kilogram;
the currency and whether a quoted rial figure is being spoken of in tomans;
whether it is a completed transaction, a buyer’s bid or a seller’s asking price;
the lot size, payment terms, packaging and laboratory specification; and
a second independent source using the same basis.

A message missing these details may describe someone’s expectation, advertisement or negotiating position. It should not be used as proof that the whole market has moved.

What the market needed instead

Hosseini called for producer and exporter associations to have a meaningful role in decisions and for the market to be managed so that speculative capital could not disrupt the provincial or national economy. The final sentence of the old translation is difficult, but its intent is clear: he wanted coordinated action rather than allowing windfall gains to determine the market.

Transparent reporting is a practical starting point. A trustworthy bulletin separates farm-gate, wholesale and export prices; names the grade and unit; records actual trades; and publishes consistent volume and value series. Traceable warehouse stock and standard grading can also reduce uncertainty, provided the organisations reporting the data are independent and their methods are visible.

The related account of the August 2016 saffron price decline shows the opposite movement in the same historical period: falling quotations could still coexist with a stagnant, hesitant market. Taken together, the reports show why one message or one daily number is too thin a basis for a commercial decision.

How to read this report today

The headline “Saffron is expensive SMS with the gossip mongers!” should be read as a record of Hosseini’s 2016 criticism, not as a current market verdict. The useful facts are the attributed nine-tonne export figure, the 45 destinations, the 4.6-to-5.3-million-toman movement and the concern that fast speculative buying could leave exporters exposed.

For a purchase today, use a dated, grade-specific quotation from a traceable seller rather than carrying any 2016 figure forward. Rowhani Saffron’s current saffron price page is the relevant starting point for present-day information.