Tehran, Iran, May 30
By Mehdi Sepahvand – Trend:
Just a year after it stopped importing wheat, Iran now says it is expecting to be able to export its surplus wheat this year.
“We are going not only to be self-sufficient in producing wheat, but also export it,” Iranian government spokesman Mohammad Bagher Nobakht told a press conference, Trend correspondent reported May 30.
He said in the current crop year the government has bought 1.964 million tons of wheat from farmers.
He expects the government will buy 11 million tons of wheat by the end of the crop season.
According to official reports, Iran owed half of the agriculture sector’s 5.4 percent economic growth to wheat production during the previous fiscal year (started March 20, 2016).
The government purchased over 11 million tons of wheat, worth 147.5 trillion rials (each USD being 32,376 rials) from farmers out of a total product of 14.5 million tons.
Iran considers exporting wheat to Iraq and Afghanistan in flour form. Almost 7.5 million tons of wheat is used by bakeries in Iran and the country’s food industry also needs 2.5 million tons of wheat every year.
Last year, over 200,000 tons of flour was exported to target markets, including Europe.