Azerbaijan, Baku, Sep.10/ Trend R.Zamanov
Iran plans to produce 12 million tons of wheat by the end of the current Iranian calendar year (March 20, 2014), Deputy Agricultural Jihad Minister Nasser Tavakoli said on Tuesday.
"Iran also plans to provide 300,000 tons of wheat seed for next year," the ISNA News Agency quoted Tavakoli as saying.
Rea Azimi, the head of Mazandaran province's agricultural jihad organisation also said that 12 agricultural projects will come on stream in the province in the near future.
Iran's former Industry Minister Mehdi Ghazanfari said in July that the government has bought eight trillion rials (about $650 million) worth of wheat from domestic buyers since the beginning of the current Iranian calendar year (March 21), the Tasnim News Agency.
Farmers sold 1.1 million tons of wheat to the government during the aforementioned period, up 16 per cent year on year.
Khuzestan province was the top producer of wheat with 685,000 tons of output. The government has raised the guaranteed price of buying wheat this year by 70 per cent, so it buys each kilogramme of wheat at 7200 rials from farmers.
Iran's Trade Promotion Organisation has disallowed exports of wheat in a bid to curb illegal selling of wheat on western borders.