The story
Ghaen Saffron and Barberry Festival in Ghaen/Ghaenat
The Ghaen Saffron and Barberry Festival marks the autumn saffron harvest and barberry season in South Khorasan province, one of the world's most productive saffron-growing regions. Farmers and visitors gather for flower picking, stigma separation demonstrations and displays of dried barberry, both crops central to the local economy.
Ghaenat county, in Iran's South Khorasan province near the Afghan border, sits within the country's most productive saffron-growing region, an area whose dry, cold-winter, hot-summer highland climate proves ideal for Crocus sativus, the source of saffron, the world's most expensive spice by weight.