Agricultural production succeeds consumption; Hojati
Iran's agricultural minister announced that rice production raised by 8 percent in preceding year.
“Mahmoud Hojati”, Iran’s Agriculture Jihad Minister, told a press brief at the ministry: "although we had agricultural product import in the preceding year but agricultural capacities and sources have been expanded by 3 million tones."
Referring to sugar import with zero tariff, he told that, In previous years, such tariff policy left many factories bankrupt. "Despite the decline of planting area of sugar beet, due to changes in the season, production has been raised from 27 tons to 54 tons in every hectare. Currently, provinces like Khuzestan are not permitted to plant the product because of the absence of refining factories and processing technologies."
Regarding oilseed planting and production's situation during the 11th government, he emphasized the cabinet’s efforts in developing oilseed planting parallel to wheat to further meeting domestic demands. Top agricultural official continued that oilseed production has been raised threefold during the last year.
Concerning the status of agricultural production export, Hojati told: " for the export of vegetables and summer crops to countries like Russia, we’d need proper packaging which unfortunately hasn’t been achieved yet."
Regarding the rice production in the country, Agricultural Minister underlined putting renovation and equipment of Iran’s north agricultural fields and farmlands and told that in places where the plan have been implemented, the possibility of second season planting have been reached. "In the previous year, rice production has been boosted 8 percent but because of the limitation in water sources, planting the product has became limited in some places. 10 billion tomans also have been credited to renovating and improving water and soil infrastructures" he added.
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