BAKU, Azerbaijan, August 6. The amount of wheat purchased from local farmers in Iran under a guarantee since the beginning of the current wheat harvesting season (started March 28, 2023), increased by 2.3 million tons compared to the same period of the previous season, Iranian Deputy Minister of Agriculture Jihad and Executive Director of Iranian Government Trading Corporation (GTC), Saeed Rad said, Trend reports.
The deputy minister noted that a total of 8.93 million tons of wheat were purchased from local farmers in the country under a guarantee within the specified period.
Meanwhile, in the same period of the last Iranian year, the figure stood at 6.6 million tons, he added.
According to Rad, more than 1 million tons of wheat was purchased in 6 out of 31 provinces of the country. These are Khuzestan, Fars, Kurdistan, Kermanshah, Golestan and West Azerbaijan provinces.
The director also pointed out that the value of wheat purchased in the country from March 28 to August 6, 2023, was 1.34 quadrillion rials (about $31.9 billion). A certain part of the mentioned money has been paid to the farmers, while the rest is expected to be paid in full soon.
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.
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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