How saffron became an American cash crop

AGRICULTURE

Spice production in the U.S. has picked up since 2015

Melinda Price of Peace and Plenty Farm in Kelseyville last month. It’s hard work to harvest, but a growing cadre of small farmers and home gardeners are cultivating the spice for profit, or simply pleasure. BRYAN MELTZ — THE NEW YORK TIMES

Bulb-like corms which produce saffron crocuses at the home of Tara and Chad Philipp in Phelan. Each purple flower contains three red stigmas, which are used to make saffron. GABRIELLA ANGOTTI-JONES — THE NEW YORK TIMES

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By Jane Black

The New York Times

Tara and Chad Philipp had never tasted saffron until they took a camping trip with a family they’d recently met. Around the campfire, their new friends cooked a big pan of paella. The Philipps fell for the sweet, musky flavor of saffron — and were intrigued to learn it was the world’s most expensive spice.

On the way home, Chad Philipp was already researching how to grow saffron on their three-acre plot in the Mojave Desert, east of Los Angeles. His wife was keen to build a new business so he could stop driving a truck and spend more time at home with their children.

“If I get something in my mind, I get obsessed with it pretty quickly,” Chad Philipp said. “I was like, ‘We’re going to do this.’”

A few months later, in 2021, the couple put $20,000 on a credit card to order 60,000 corms, the bulb-like stems that produce the saffron flower. And this past November, they harvested 250 grams of saffron, which they’ll sell for a whopping $100 per gram — as much as 10 times the price of high-quality imported saffron.

The Philipps are part of a resurgence of interest in growing saffron among American small farmers in search of a cash crop, and among cooks and backyard gardeners seeking the thrill of growing the spice. Today, farms are growing saffron in California, Washington, Texas, Pennsylvania and Vermont. Martha Stewart (of course) has saffron planted on her farm in Katonah, New York. And the Philipps have sold more than $1 million worth of corms to 24,000 customers.

Saffron’s fragrant, crimson threads have played a key role in many of the world’s great cuisines since ancient times. They add a golden color and subtle bass note to Indian sweets, Moroccan tagines, Spanish paellas, French bouillabaisse and tachin, a classic Iranian rice dish layered with meat and dried fruit. Today, Iran is the largest producer of saffron in the world, but because of trade restrictions, shoppers in the United States will find the spice imported from countries including Spain, India and Afghanistan.

In 2023, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the U.S. imported 175 metric tons of saffron. But domestic production of saffron is so small — a tiny fraction of the saffron sold in the United States — that no one compiles data on it. One reason: Saffron from abroad is far less expensive, because the labor needed to painstakingly harvest each flower and remove its three delicate stigmas by hand is much cheaper than in the United States.

It may come as a surprise that saffron grows at all in the United States. In fact, Americans have been cultivating it since the colonial era, when it was traded on the Philadelphia commodity exchange at the same price as gold. The Pennsylvania Dutch in particular embraced saffron, using it in teas, soups and cakes. They even exported it to Spanish colonies in the Caribbean until the trade was upended by the War of 1812.

Saffron’s modern gold rush began in 2015 at the University of Vermont, where entomologist Margaret Skinner and the agroecologist Arash Ghalehgolabbehbahani began investigating the plant’s viability in colder climates.

“My initial reaction was: ‘Grow it in Vermont? There’s no way,’” Skinner said.

But saffron thrived, even in the northernmost parts of the state. In 2017, the university’s newly formed North American Center for Saffron Research and Development held its first workshop. Farmers from around the country traveled to Burlington to learn how to grow, process and market saffron.

Melinda Price, a founder of Peace and Plenty Farm in Kelseyville, California, was one of them. A former tech executive, she had little experience farming, but knew that she and her husband “couldn’t make a living selling carrots and kale.” Price explored several niche crops: wasabi, vanilla, hops.

Saffron had several advantages the others lacked. Corms planted in September would bloom by November. The two-week harvest season was intense, but the plants needed little attention the rest of the year. And saffron corms replicate themselves underground. A farmer who plants 1,000 corms may have 4,000 the next year.

In 2021, Peace and Plenty harvested 700,000 flowers, which yielded about 3.5 kilograms of saffron. Price sold it to home cooks, and to chefs.