Azerbaijan, Baku, Nov.23/ Trend G.Mehdi/
Sixty five tea processing units have been shut down in Iran due to improper government policies for purchasing green tea leaves from farmers, ILNA quoted an official with the syndicate of tea farmers as saying.
Behzad Sazandeh added that some 50 people were working on average in each unit.
Sazandeh added that from a total of 180 tea factories, only 115 of them currently work and that at minimum capacity.
Many tea farms have been turned into forests in the northern areas of the country, he said, criticising the Ministry of Agriculture for its wrong policies resulting in farmers facing severe financial problems.
The Iranian administration has failed to settle a 500 billion rials (about $40 million) debt to tea farmers in the Northern provinces, an official with the Iranian tea farmers' union said earlier this month.
Parviz Shabani added that the failure came as parliament forced the administration to settle its debt with the tea farmers.
The farmers are grappling with a tough economic situation and have serious problems to make ends meet, he noted.
In June 2011, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said that Iran is the world's fifth largest importer of tea after Russia, the UAE, the UK and the US.
Referring to the two-fold increase in Iran's tea imports in the past 20 years, the FAO said that Iran imports some 75,000 tons of tea worth $280 million each year.
In the past 20 years, Iran's tea imports have almost doubled in weight and value. In 1990, Iran's tea imports were put at 42,000 tons worth $117 million.