11/6/2022 0 Comments Belt of the long road![]() ![]() Mohammad Akbari, a former adviser to Iran's agriculture minister, has an even more pessimistic view. Masoud Daneshmand, the former chairman of the Iran Economy House, this month said Iranian investment in production of crops such as corn and soya beans in Venezuela is not economically viable because of the long distance between the two countries and the high cost of transportation. Long road aheadĭespite the opportunities, some experts believe that the cross-country cultivation is not a suitable solution for Iran due to political and economic instability of some of the target countries, such as Venezuela. Venezuela's Agriculture and Land Minister Wilmar Castro Soteldo said last month that Iran's advanced know-how and technology in the fields of producing fertilisers, biological pesticides, livestock probiotics, and poultry can benefit his country. Tehran has also sought to leverage its relatively strong capacity in the production of agricultural machinery and equipment. As a major global producer of urea, at seven million tonnes of the nitrogen fertiliser per year, Iran has sought to use this capacity to pursue its goals. "The government has given priority to the import of agricultural crops cultivated in foreign countries rather than crops simply imported by traders," the head of the agriculture ministry programme Farming Beyond Borders, Mohsen Shaterzadeh, said in January.Īmid shortages of agricultural goods, the global demand for fertilisers has grown. In the current fiscal year, March 2022-2023, the government is required to prioritise its purchases from Iranian companies active in trans-territorial cultivation for agricultural and livestock imports. Tehran is alarmed by global food security concerns and rising prices, driven partly by the coronavirus pandemic and now by Russia's war on Ukraine. Last year, it imported over 28 million tonnes of agricultural products, mainly wheat and corn. ![]() Iran produces agricultural products weighing around 133 million tonnes per year, but it also imports a large amount. Tehran, which, between 20 celebrated its self-sufficiency in strategic products like wheat, and even exported part of its wheat surplus in 2017, now needs to buy a record eight million tonnes of wheat in the current season to make up for shortfalls. The idea of cross-country farming surfaced in Iran more than two decades ago, but officials started implementing serious measures only in 2016 as part of their strategy to secure food supplies for the country's 85 million population. It was reported that Russia had also offered 100,000 hectares of land, in an indication that Tehran is pursuing its plans in various countries. Iran announced this month that its Latin American ally, Venezuela, had offered it one million hectares of land for cross-country farming. In spite of its nearly 165 million hectares of land, only about 50 million of it is arable, with just 18 million hectares used for farming.Īs drought and other repercussions of climate change strain Iran's agriculture, leading occasionally to unrest, the sector is also struggling with a growing population and decades of unsustainable socio-economic development and mismanagement.Ĭonfronting a situation that has steadily deteriorated over the past, Iranian authorities have turned to trans-territorial farming as part of their alternative strategy to achieve food security and buy time for soil and water restoration. Iran, located in the dry belt of the world, counts among the driest of countries, with an average rainfall of only 250mm a year. ![]()
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