BAKU, Azerbaijan, October 2. Around 274,000 tons of wheat have been purchased from farmers under a guarantee in Iran’s Ardabil Province since the beginning of the current wheat harvesting season (started March 28, 2023), Director General of Iran’s Government Trading Corporation’s branch in Ardabil Province Ali Nobakht said, Trend reports.
According to Nobakht, the purchased wheat was valued at 41 trillion rials (about $976 million), and 27 trillion rials (about $643 million) has been paid to the farmers so far.
The director general added that the wheat purchase volume in the province has increased in the past 4 years. He said that 4 years ago (March 21, 2019 through March 19, 2020) 197,000 tons, 3 years ago (March 20, 2020 through March 20, 2021) 212,000 tons, 2 year ago (March 21, 2021 through March 20, 2022) 169,000 tons and last year (March 21, 2022 through March 20, 2023) 252,000 tons of wheat were purchased under the guarantee scheme.
Nobakht said that the wheat purchase volume has grown compared to the last four years. He said that the province purchased 197,000 tons, 212,000 tons, 169,000 tons, and 252,000 tons of wheat in the previous four years, respectively, under the guarantee scheme.
Ardabil Province in Iran has a total of 750,000 hectares of land that can be used for farming. Out of this, 270,000 hectares are irrigated agricultural land. Wheat is the main crop grown in the province, covering an average of 275,000 hectares of land.
Overall, 13 million tons of wheat are forecast 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 the 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 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 were ordinary agricultural land.
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