BAKU, Azerbaijan, October 16. The guaranteed wheat purchases from local farmers in Iran’s Kermanshah Province in the west of the country increased by 38 percent for the current wheat harvesting season (March 28 through September 22, 2023), compared to the previous season, Director General of Iran’s Government Trading Corporation’s branch in Kermanshah Province Ali Malikshahi said, Trend reports.
Malikshahi said that during this period, more than 806,000 tons of wheat worth about 121 trillion rials (around $2.88 billion) were acquired in Kermanshah Province.
He also said that Kermanshah Province was the fourth largest wheat buyer in Iran with a guarantee, following Khuzestan, Kurdistan, and Fars provinces.
The director general added that 92 trillion rials (approximately $2.19 billion) of the guaranteed wheat payments have been made to the farmers so far, and the remaining 29 trillion rials (about $690 million) will be paid soon.
Malikshahi stated that the wheat storage capacity in the province was about 1.4 million tons.
As reported, Iran’s Kermanshah Province had over 950,000 hectares of farmland, where more than 4.5 million tons of crops were produced every year.
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 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 for ordinary agricultural land.
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