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The term "cash crop" refers to a crop that is grown for sale rather than use. So NYT is using it correctly, but I agree they could have chosen a better term for the headline, since "cash crop" doesn't really help to explain the article.

Also, to be pedantic, 3.5kg was from one American farm, not "from American farms".

He also mentioned the 360g from another farm.

At $100/g 3.5kg is $350,000 which is pretty decent cash for a crop that was planted in September and harvested in November. And unlike marijuana you probably don't need to have armed guards.

I'm intrigued by the harvesting technique. Mostly because it looks like an interesting problem you might be able to work on with robotics.

As far as I understand there are machines or automations for this process. But it decreases the quality. We have saffron here in Switzerland and the reason it's premium priced is mostly because it's done the exact same way as 100 years ago.

$100/g? You can buy it for less than 1/10 of that in Europe at least

I was just quoting the article. Apparently 'bespoke' saffron gets a premium?

Maybe this article is trying to seed it for American consideration.