Determining the socio-economic importance of saffron as an alternative product to opium production in Afghanistan

The objective of this work is to determine the socio-economic structures of farmers engaged in saffron production as an alternative to opium production in Afghanistan, the main challenges of the saffron sector and how saffron influenced producer's incomes. The primary data for the survey were obtained by face-to-face interviews with farmers of 4 saffron leader districts in Herat, which constitute 98% of Afghanistan Saffron production during the 2016-2017 production period. Factor analysis was used to determine the factors that are effective on saffron producers. Clustering analysis was further used to separate producers into groups and identify them into the same group. Normal OLS regression analysis was used to determine the factors affecting the efficiency of Saffron production. According to the results of this research, 4.7 tons of dry saffron was produced during the 2015-2016 production season in Afghanitan. Also, Saffron production increased by 29% to 6.08 tonnes in 2016-2017 season. Nine factors were reduced by factor analysis out of 28 risk factors affecting agricultural production in the research area. These factors were categorized into 2 clusters according to the K-Average clustering method. Based on the sources of risk, the farmers in the 1st cluster constituted 2.63% of the total farmers while farmers in the 2nd cluster constituted 97.37% of the total producers. According to the first cluster, the most important factors affecting agricultural production were: Negative climatic conditions as the most important factor while Market instability was the second factor. Only negative climatic condition was the only factor affecting agricultural production in the second cluster. Saffron producers annual average yield is 6.6 kg/ha in Afghanistan. Producers within the age range of 36-45 years were the most productive. Producers with low income are less interested in saffron production due to high start-up capital requirement. Results showed that if opium production is permitted, saffron farmers would produce opium instead of saffron since its production yields are low. This is attributed to the high revenue associated with opium production in Afghanistan.