BAKU, Azerbaijan, May 8. In general, 30,000 tons of tea leaves worth 4.15 trillion rials (about $98.8 million) were purchased from local tea farmers in Iran’s Mazandaran and Gilan provinces, since the beginning of the current tea harvesting season (started April 21, 2023) in the country, Chairman of the Iran Tea Organization, Habib Jahansaz said, Trend reports citing the organization.
According to Jahansaz, so far, a total of 130 billion rials (about$ 3.1 million) has been paid to farmers in exchange for purchased tea leaves. The figure is expected to reach approximately 500 billion rials (about $11.9 million) in the coming days.
In Iran, tea leaves are purchased from local farmers by tea factories and the Iranian Government Trading Corporation (GTC).
The chairman also added that 99 percent of the purchased tea leaves were in 1st grade.
Jahansaz noted that 6,690 tons of dry tea were produced from purchased tea leaves.
Meanwhile, a total of 116,317 tons of tea leaves worth 9.49 trillion rials (about $226 million) were purchased from tea farmers in the last season. Some 26,171 tons of dry tea were produced from the mentioned amount of tea leaves.
In Iran, some products such as rice, sugar beet, wheat, and tea are purchased from farmers by the Government Trade Corporation (GTC) of Iran under a guarantee and paid for in installments.
The Iranian Ministry of Agriculture Jihad has set the price of 1 kg of 1st-grade tea leaves at approximately 140,000 rials (about $3.33), and the price of 1 kg of 2nd-grade tea leaves at 115,000 rials (about $2.74).
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