BAKU, Azerbaijan, June 6. More than 3.4 million tons of wheat have been purchased from Iranian local farmers under a guarantee since the beginning of the current wheat harvesting season (started March 28, 2023), in the country, an official of the Iranian Ministry of Agriculture Jihad Sohrab Sohrabi said, Trend reports.
The official noted that so far, wheat harvesting has been completed on 1.3 million hectares of cultivation area in the country.
According to him, wheat harvesting is currently carried out in 20 provinces of the country by means of 20,000 combine harvesters.
Sohrabi also pointed out that a plan has been prepared to increase dry-farming land in the country to more than 5 million hectares. This plan will be implemented in 24 provinces.
Overall, 13 million tons of wheat are forecasted to be harvested in Iran for the current Iranian year (March 21, 2023 through March 19, 2024). Of that amount, 8-8.5 million tons are estimated to be purchased by Iranian Government Trading Corporation (GTC).
Meanwhile, last Iranian year (March 21, 2022 through March 20, 2023), about 11.5 million tons of wheat were harvested in the country, of which 7.5 million tons were purchased by the GTC.
Last year, the price of 1 kg of wheat was set up at 115,000 rials (about $2.74), while, 1 kg of wheat is set at 150,000 rials (about $3.57) for the current season.
In total, wheat was planted on 5.95 million hectares of land in Iran in the current season. Of this, 3.96 million hectares accounted for dry-farming land, while 1.99 million hectares for ordinary agricultural land.
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