Trade and use of saffron 93.7 percent of the year's global total mass; much of the Iranian crop was bound for export. In the same year, second-ranked Greece produced . Morocco and Kashmir-India: Most of the region's saffron is grown in the more climatically suitable "Valley of Kashmir", which is in Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir ; region of Kashmir, tied as the next-highest producer, each produced . In decreasing order, Iran, Greece, Morocco, the Kashmir (Jammu and Kashmir-India), Azerbaijan, Spain, and Italy dominate the world harvest. In Iran, the world's leading producer, the erstwhile and northeasterly Khorasan Province, which in 2004 was divided
History of saffron of hostility that flared between the declining landed gentry and upstart and increasingly wealthy merchants. The fourteen-week-long "Saffron War" was ignited when one shipment of saffron was hijacked and stolen by nobles. The load, which was en route to the town of Basel, would at today's market prices be valued at more than 500,000. That shipment "was" eventually returned, but the wider 13th–century trade was subject to mass piracy. Thieves plying Mediterranean waters would often ignore gold stores and instead steal Venetian- and Genoan-marketed saffron bound for Europe. Wary of such unpleasantness, Basel planted its own corms. Several years of