Saffron and cooperative in Herat

In the past few years, many refugees from Iran returned to their Afghan homeland. In cooperation with another organization, Shelter Now gives the returnees a six-month agricultural training and a starter kit.

About 40 families who no longer own farmland have founded a cooperative under our guidance and support and cultivate jointly leased land. The women of these families have started their own project: the “Women’s Garden”.

Besides cereals, fruit and vegetables, they also grow the most expensive spice in the world: saffron. The “Shelter Saffron” has a high quality. It can be ordered in our office in Braunschweig.

Farmers can earn more with the production of high-quality saffron than with opium production, a real option.

Harvest time in late autumn: The saffron fields bloom abundantly. All help to pick the blossoms.

The women from the cooperative pull the female flower parts, the pistil, from the flowers. This is the saffron.