Tehran, Iran, Jan. 8
By Kamyar Eghbal – Trend:
A senior government official has told Trend that Iranian policymakers have developed plans in order to encourage investment in the country’s rural areas.
Nasser Zargar, the deputy head of the rural development organization of Iran for investment, has said that the country has allocated resources for financing the development of the agriculture sector and returning the production chain to villages.
“Currently, we have 2 trillion tomans ($488 million) worth of resources, of which there are 1.6 trillion tomans ($391 million) in Sina Bank, and 340 billion tomans ($83 Million) in the Parsian Bank,” he said.
“Our main goal is to bring back agricultural production cycle to the rural and local economy,” he said.
“The displacement of population in majority of the developed countries of the world is estimated less than two percent because the rural populations in these countries are economically secured. Coming to Iran, technology has mostly been developed in large cities… And urban community controls about 65 percent of the benefits of the production cycle of the country’s agriculture sector,” said Zargar.
saying that the country needs to improve the rural chain of economy through the modern technologies such as water management, and industrial agriculture, Zargar added that under a separate plan the country has decided to allocate about $2.7 billion for employing modern methods in the agriculture sector.
While the villagers in the frontier areas will repay the loans with an interest rate of four percent, those in the other villages of the country will settle the debts with an interest rate of six percent.
He further highlighted that the country seeks to increase the share of renewable energy through developing the rural areas.
The official underlined that his organization pays priority to plans that would increase the volume of organic cultivation and lessen the use of agricultural pesticides.
Coming to livestock, the organization attaches high importance to breeding, twin births and poly births, he added.
Saying that there are about 63,000 villages in the country, he added that the organization plans to build educational units in 2,598 rural districts of the country to bring in students from surrounding villages.