Baku, Azerbaijan, April 15
By Elnur Baghishov – Trend:
As long as the situation with the climate in Iran remains unchanged, onion prices will remain high, Najafgholi Salehi, head of the Department of Agriculture for Iran’s eastern Razavi Khorasan Province, told ISNA, Trend reports.
According to Salehi, there are no problems with the cultivation of onions in Iran whatsoever. The only problem is with the recent rainfalls, which prevent the harvesting.
Abbas Keshavarz, Iranian Deputy Minister of Agriculture Jihad, clarified details of the damage caused to agriculture.
According to Keshavarz, about 1 million hectares of land has been damaged with different levels of severity as a result of the floods, with about 250,000 hectares of sowing areas and 150,000 hectares of garden areas having been destroyed.
Deputy Minister said that serious damage has been done to garden and sowing areas of Khuzestan, Lorestan, Golestan, Mazandaran, Ilam and Kermanshah provinces.
"Damage has also been done to 6,000 poultry farms and about 100 fish farms," he said.
Rainfalls which started since mid-March, along with economic issues, have led to an increase in prices for other agricultural products like onions in Iran. As such, onion prices have even managed to rise up to 150,000 rials (app. $3,57). In this regard, the Ministry of Industry, Mine and Trade of Iran imposed a ban on the export of potatoes along with onions on April 4.
This ban, however, did not seriously affect onion prices, as 1 kg of onions is sold at around 120,000-150,000 rials (app. $2.85-3.57) in Iranian cities.