BAKU, Azerbaijan, Aug. 2
By Elnur Baghishov – Trend:
About 296,000 tons of seed wheat have been purchased from farmers in Iran from the beginning of the current Iranian year (March 21, 2021) to July 11, Deputy Director of Seed and Plant Certification and Registration Institute of Iran Samad Mobasser said, Trend reports citing Ministry of Agriculture Jihad of Iran.
Mobasser noted that this volume is accounted for only 54 percent of the plan.
A total of 552,000 tons of seed wheat is planned to be purchased for use in the next planting year. About 332,000 tons of it will be planted in ordinary areas, and 220,000 tons in the dry farming land, he added.
The deputy director said that so far, 217,000 tons of wheat have been purchased for planting in ordinary areas. This means the plan was implemented about 65 percent. Despite the drought, the figure is estimated to increase to 80 percent.
According to Mobaseer, the bulk of seed wheat intended for planting in ordinary areas was purchased in Alborz Province and amounted to 2,710 tons.
“In addition, 80,000 tons of seed wheat have been purchased for planting in dry farming land. The most amount was purchased in Kermanshah Province,” the he noted.
The deputy director emphasized that seed wheat is usually purchased from farmers by private companies. In this area, there are problems such as the lack of necessary loans.
Mobasser added that as a result of the inability of companies purchasing seed wheat to obtain the necessary loans from Bank Keshavarzi Iran, some farmers refused to sell their products to companies and sold them to flour, pasta factories and brokers in exchange for cash.
However, private companies control the cultivation of seed wheat. Thus, they give seed wheat to farmers, who grow wheat under the control of these companies and sell it to these companies.
"These companies need a loan of about 30 trillion rials (about $714 million) to buy at least 500,000 tons of seed wheat from farmers. According to the latest data, only 10 percent of 260 companies have so far received loans,” he said.