Baku, Azerbaijan, April 16
By Gazenfer Hamidov – Trend:
Iran has implemented reconstruction projects in 419 hectares of greenhouses across the country, in order to save water, said Gholamreza Taqavi, an official with Iran’s agriculture ministry.
Taqavi, who heads the Greenhouse, Medicinal Plants and Edible Mushroom Affairs Bureau of the agriculture ministry, said that the projects which were carried out last fiscal year, ended March 20, will lead to production increase as well, the news portal of the ministry reported.
The official said that the reconstruction projects are expected to resulted with water consumption save by 420,000 cubic meters per year.
Under the plan 81 hectares of wooden greenhouses were upgraded into modern and semi-modern greenhouses, 15 hectares of non-standard greenhouses were standardized, he said, adding that also projects implemented for changing feeding of warming systems from liquid fuel to natural gas in 50 hectares of greenhouses.
Taqavi said that the output of the greenhouses is expected to increase from the current level of 180 tons per hectare to 250 tons as a result of the reconstruction plan.
The area under greenhouse cultivation in Iran presently stands at some 12,200 hectares, which is 38 percent more compared to the period before August 2013 when President Hassan Rouhani took office.
The agriculture ministry plans to increase the area under greenhouse cultivation to more than 48,000 hectares by the end of the 20-Year Vision Plan (2025).
The ministry expects to annually produce 21 million tons of agro products in greenhouses when the project is completed.
According to agriculture ministry officials, the construction of every one square meter of a greenhouse in Iran costs between $1,000 and $2,000.