Saffron farms squeezed by climate and competition

A sharp wind shunts clouds across the low and endless skies of La Mancha as Carlos Fernández stoops to pluck the last mauve flowers of the season from the cold earth. Their petals, which stain his index finger and thumb blue, enclose an almost weightless prize - crimson threads that are treasured across the world.

- Sam Jones

But despite the prices his crop fetches, the life of a saffron grower is not without its trials. As well as the back-breaking picking and painstaking sorting, there is foreign competition, unpredictable yields, increasingly evident effects of the climate emergency and, on this particular day, the infuriating discovery that thieves descended. on his fields overnight. And then there are the dreaded words - "oro rojo".

"Calling it 'red gold' damages our saffron because it makes it sound like something that's expensive," said Fernández, the president of the regulatory council of La Mancha's Protected Designation of Origin saffron label.