• Saffron harvest begins in Indian Kashmir

    Yawar Nazir / Getty Images Contributor

    Yawar Nazir / Getty Images Contributor

    A Kashmiri farmer holds a threads, or crocus, from saffron flowers

    A Kashmiri farmer picks saffron flowers in a farm on Monday, Nov. 05, 2012 in Pampore, in Indian administered Kashmir. Production of the precious spice is falling rapidly in the region. Farmers have become concerned at the falling yield of the saffron crop year after year with the changing climatic conditions responsible for a 50 to 60 percent decrease in the yield for the last two decades. Approximately 5,000 flowers are required to provide enough threads to make an ounce. Saffron is a precious spice because of the vast acreage involved in addition to the labor-intensive handpicking of the flowers and extracting of the tiny threads.

    Yawar Nazir / Getty Images Contributor

    Kashmiri farmers pluck threads, or crocus, from saffron flowers.

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  • Majid Saeedi / Getty Images

    Afghan workers pluck saffron flowers on a farm on November 09, 2010 in Herat, Afghanistan. Around 2500 farmers, in eight provinces, are working on saffron farms for export mostly to India and some European countries. The trade in saffron is estimated to be of an annual value in excess of 200 million USD to Afghanistan. Agricultural produce programs, including Saffron, are being offered to farmers as an alternative to the harvesting of poppies, used in the production of heroin. In western Herat province, which borders Iran, the challenge is to be able to convince farmers of the long term benefits of replacing the growing of poppies with the purple crocus plants whose highly prized stigmas produce the spice used as a seasoning and a coloring agent in cooking.

    Majid Saeedi / Getty Images

    Afghan workers pluck saffron flowers on a farm in Herat, Afghanistan.

    Majid Saeedi / Getty Images

    Staves of saffron crocus lay on a table during the saffron harvest on Nov. 08, 2010 near the village of Goriyan in Herat, Afghanistan.

    Saffron replacing heroin?

    By Phaedra Singelis, NBC News

    The intensity of the color in these images caught my eye. Although I've seen many beautiful images from Afghanistan, they aren't usually colorful. I didn't know saffron came from crocus flowers, did you?