Saffron cultivation needs lots of land and labor, but the world's most expensive spice could be an economic lifeline for Afghanistan, with international financial support set to decline in coming years.

The spice is prized around the world for use in cooking, perfumes, as a fabric dye and a treasured component of traditional medicine.

In the western Afghan province of Herat, elderly women and young girls make their way slowly through a field of tiny saffron plants, carefully plucking the valuable flowers.

Each one is placed in a plastic basket, which is then weighed on electronic scales.

Hand workers then pry apart the delicate lilac leaves, vivid red stigmas and pale yellow stamens - a painstaking task that demands concentration and skill.

A few slithers of red saffron stigma also make a colorful and aromatic tea that is reputed to have near-magical healing qualities.

As such, saffron could be the perfect crop to boost Afghanistan's fragile economy and provide an alternative to the poppy harvest that produces illegal opium and funds Taliban insurgents.

But it is no simple solution. Costs are high. A harsh winter can wipe out the crop and neighboring Iran dominates the market, producing about 90 percent of the world's saffron.

In Herat, about 6,000 people, 4,000 of them women, are employed in saffron farming on 325 hectares of land. The product is exported to India, Europe, the United States and China.

Since the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001, all US-led efforts to eradicate poppy production have failed. Cultivation reached a record high in 2014.

(China Daily 12/19/2014 page11)