Upon entering the Kozani Saffron Cooperative, a strong smell of saffron hits the nose. For the people who work here, counting, sorting and packing the precious plant, this is the scent they smell every October and November. This is the time when in the village of Krokos in Western Macedonia, the inhabitants go to the fields sown with thousands of purple flowers to collect the so-called “gold” of the Kozanite land.

Every purple stamen they manage to collect counts. Their crop is transported to the cooperative, where it is measured and checked for moisture. Then the women of the village, sitting among the small hills of saffron, wearing special caps, gloves and aprons, surgically select small samples and weigh them. Just one gram of yolk is enough to put it in simple glass bottles or transparent plastic boxes and travel from a small village to all corners of the Earth, bringing significant income and a strong brand for the place.

However, this year this process was abruptly interrupted.

Member of the cooperative since the 80s Emmanuel Paraskevas enters the building with two white plastic buckets. That’s all the saffron he’s harvested this year. The old farmer is impatiently waiting for the workers to weigh the quantity. “890 grams, Mr. Manolis.” For a year of hard work in the field, he did not collect a single kilogram. “Big loss! We didn’t have production this year,” he says disappointedly. Last year at this time, he gave the cooperative three kilograms of a very expensive plant.

He’s not the only one with this kind of damage, “this is something we’re dealing with for the first time. Since we’ve been recording since 1954, we’ve never had such a low yield per acre. This year was an all-time low,” explains cooperative president Vassilis Mitsopoulos, who says he is worried about the future of the crop.The cooperative typically produces three tons of saffron.This year it will struggle to harvest 800kg from its 800 member producers.The very large reduction does not appear to be due to with something transient or easily resolved, but with an increasingly intense phenomenon: the climate crisis.

Crocus needs autumn to bloom. However, in October this year, the thermometer in the area rose unusually high, which prevented the plant from flowering. As a result, production was reduced by 70%.

“High temperatures combined with a lack of rain in the summer did not encourage saffron to bloom. The plant is “confused” and its biological cycle is not working properly. This is climate change: we are talking about either a climate crisis due to the human factor, or a change due to the periodicity of the climate,” explains Petros Tarantilis, professor of instrumental chemical analysis of natural products at the Agricultural University of Athens and quality advisor to the cooperative. Locals understand the difference by experience. “How is it possible at this time in Kozani to stand outside and be so lightly dressed?” asks the chairman of the cooperative, who was born and raised in the area. “This not normal”.

The issue concerns not only Greece. In India, the world’s second largest producer of saffron, production has also fallen by a third due to rising temperatures and drought, and in the Spanish region of La Mancha, saffron production has almost ceased.

“I am afraid that this will happen in the case of Greece if we do not take action. The yolk is disappearing from Europe,” notes Mr. Mitsopoulos.

“High temperatures, combined with a lack of moisture, did not contribute to the flowering of saffron. The plant is “confused” and its biological cycle is not working properly.”

Such a scenario would prove disastrous for a region that has tied its identity and part of its economy to saffron cultivation. “For the locals, the money from the sale of saffron was firewood in the winter or a means for their children’s education,” he explains, speaking of the importance of saffron to the well-being of the local community. In addition, Western Macedonia is already suffering from youth flight and delignitization.

The systematic cultivation of the aromatic plant began three centuries ago in Western Macedonia. In the 17th century, Kozani was an important trading center from where goods were transported to and from the Ottoman Empire. Gyrologists discovered a spice in Vienna that was very expensive. “They brought the first bulbs here and the plant flourished. Saffron loved this place,” emphasizes Mr. Mitsopoulos.

The quality of saffron grown on Kozani soil is excellent and has been exported to Europe, America and even China for many years. In a normal year, as in previous years, the export value reaches 5 million euros, and a gram of organic yolk is valued at about 3.5 euros. Demand never stopped, but production fluctuated depending on the social and economic conditions of the country.

“In the early 80s, we reached 12 tons of production. But then a new generation began to leave the countryside, and production fell into decline. During the financial crisis, production began to rise again. More and more young people were leaving the urban centers and returning to the countryside and saffron cultivation,” Professor Tarantilis notes.

“Disappointment. The worst feeling is to come to the field for production and not get it,” says Emmanuel Paraskevas, who leads us to his field. Five or six purple flowers stand out among the plowed soil, which took a long time to “wake up.” He cuts them, deftly circling the flower with his hand, showing us how carefully to pick the yolk.Saffron in the region is a family business: as soon as the flowers are cut, they are taken to the producers at home, where all members help to clean them, lick them, separating only the red tops, of which expensive and healing saffron is composed.About 120,000 flowers are needed per kilogram of saffron.This process requires many hours of work per day and the dedication of the whole family.Because of this, and when production is not enough, the disappointment is huge.Leaving with freshly cut flowers in hand, Mr. Paraskevas shows us the olive trees that his fellow villagers have recently planted in the neighbourhood. In some weather, they began to pick up. People started planting other crops like almonds,” he says.

Vassilis Mitsopoulos, president of the saffron growers’ cooperative, has the biggest fear that many growers will move away from saffron before they have time to see how they adapt to the new conditions. The bet, he said, is to secure government support by replacing some of the lost revenue so that producers can weather this year and stay in season and in the sector, which is the region’s success story.

In the meantime, the cooperative will try to explore existing alternatives. In Spain, they experimentally tested the cultivation of saffron indoors, that is, in special rooms, in order to overcome climatic difficulties and increase production. “If we see how this change takes hold, perhaps growers can switch to indoor cultivation,” emphasizes Mr. Tarantilis.

The president will not follow the example of Europe. In the next period, he will go to the country of saffron, to Iran, which is still the country with the largest production of saffron. There, he will talk to manufacturers and see new ways to produce and deal with crises, hoping to return with smart and innovative ideas in his luggage.