Agriculture in Iran

Agriculture in Iranis underdeveloped. While one-third ofIran's total surface area is suitable for farming, due to
poor soil and inadequate water distribution,  most of it is not cultivated. Less than one-third of the land planted with crops, orchards and vineyards isirrigated; the rest is devoted todryland farming.The western and northwestern portions of the country have the most fertile soil. Iran'sfood securityindex stands at around 96 percent.
3% of the total land area is used forgrazingand small-fodder production. Most of the grazing is done on semi-dry rangeland in mountain areas and  areas surrounding the large deserts ("Dasht's") of Central Iran.
53 percent of Iran's land is non-agricultural terrain:
At the end of the 20th century, agricultural activities accounted for one-fifth of Iran's gross domestic product (GDP) and employed a comparable proportion of theworkforce. Mostfarmsare small, less than 25 acres (10 hectares), and are not economically viable, which has contributed to the wide-scalemigrationto cities. In addition towater scarcityand areas of poor soil, seed is of low quality and farming techniques are antiquated.
All these factors have contributed to lowcrop yieldsand poverty in rural areas. Further, after the 1979 revolution many agricultural workers claimed ownership rights and forcibly occupied large, privately owned farms where they had been employed. The legal disputes that arose from this situation remained unresolved through the 1980s, and many owners put off making large capital investments that would have improved farmproductivity, further deteriorating production. Progressive government efforts and incentives during the 1990s, however, improved agricultural productivity marginally, helping Iran toward its goal of reestablishing national self-sufficiency in food production.
World average annual rainfall is 800 mm but in Iran the annual rainfall is only 220 mm.Overall, Iran's soil is not well suited for large scale agriculture. About 12 percent of the country's total land area of 1,636,000 km² is cultivated. Still, 63% of the cultivable lands have not been used, and 185,000 km² of the present farms are being used with 50 to 60% capacity.
Both irrigated and rain-fed farming are used in Iran. In 2005, some 13.05 million hectares of land were under cultivation, of which 50.45% was allocated to irrigated farming and the remaining 49.55% to rain-fed system.As of 2013, the amount of cultivated land that is irrigated has increased to 8 million hectares, while 10 million hectares remain rain-fed.
The wide range oftemperaturefluctuation in different parts of the country and the multiplicity ofclimatic zonesmake it possible to cultivate a diverse variety of crops, including cereals (wheat,barley,rice, andmaize (corn)), fruits (dates,figs,pomegranates,melons, andgrapes),vegetables,cotton,sugar beets,sugarcaneandpistachios(World's largest producer with 40% of the world's output in 2005),nuts,olives,spicese.g.saffron(world's largest producer with 81% of the world's total output),raisin(world's third largest producer & second largest exporter),tea,tobacco,berberis(world's largest producer) andmedicinal herbs.More than 2,000 plant species are grown in Iran; only 100 of which are being used inpharmaceuticalindustries. The land covered by Iran's naturalflorais four times that of Europe.
Wheat,rice, andbarleyare the country's major crops. The Iranian grain sector is highly regulated. Producers receive subsidised access to input costs such as fertiliser and pesticides, as well as a guaranteed support price for their crops.
Wheat:In 2007 Iran exported close to 600,000 tonnes of wheat (out of a production of 15 million tonnes).In 2008, following adrought, Iran imported approximately 7 million tonnes of wheat.
Rice:Iran's total rice production stands at 2.2 million tons per annum whereas annual consumption is about three million tons (2008).Iran has imported about 630,000 tons of rice from UAE, Pakistan and Uruguay worth $271 million in 2008 and 1.4 million tons of rice, worth $800 million in 2009.Iran's rice imports dropped by 40% in 2010.Iran has 3,800 rice milling units (2009).The average per capita consumption of rice in Iran is 45.5 kg, which makes Iranians the 13th biggest rice consumers.Rice is mostly produced in northern Iran. Rice has been cultivated for many years inMazandaranandGilanProvince of Iran. In Northern Province, manyindicarice cultivars including Tarom, Gerdeh, Hashemi, Hasani, Neda and Gharib have been bred by farmers.
Sugar:In 2008, Iran had a shortage of 400,000 tons to 600,000 tons of sugar nationwide.Sugar companies suffered from massive imports of cheap sugar over the past few years, which led to a 50% drop in the capacity of thesugar industry's production in 2008. The lack ofimport tariffswas the main reason for the domestic sugar industry suffering in this manner.
Pistachio:Iran ranks as the world's largestpistachioproducer and exporter followed by USA andTurkey. After oil and carpets, pistachios are Iran's biggest exports: about 200,000 tons for $840 million in 2008.More than 350,000 people earn a living from the nut, most of them in vast groves of the desert oases in southeast.Iran's share in the global pistachio market reached 50 percent in 2010.
Saffron:Saffronis cultivated in many regions of the country, the provinces of North Khorasan, Khorasan Razavi and South Khorasan in the northeast have the highest production share. Iran's saffron is exported to the United Arab Emirates, Spain, Japan, Turkmenistan, France, Italy and the US.The northeastern Khorasan Razavi province exported 57 tons of saffron worth $156.5 million to 41 countries in 2010.
Tea:Tea production rose to 190,000 tons in 2007 from 130,000 tons in 2004. 75,000 tons of tea is smuggled into Iran each year (2008).
Horticulture:Close to 19 million tons of horticultural crops will be produced by the end of Fourth Plan (2005–10).
Fruits:Iran exported more than 35,000 tons of citrus fruits valued at $20.8 million to 36 countries in 2008.Iran is among the largest producers of berries and stone fruits in the world, especially pomegranates, dates, figs and cherries.See also:Fruit in Iran.
Of the country'slivestock,sheepare by far the most numerous, followed bygoats,cattle,donkeys,horses,water buffalo, andmules. The raising ofpoultryfor eggs and meat is prevalent. One area where production infrastructure has progressed rapidly is the poultry sector. The face of the industry has now been transformed dramatically so that the entiresupply chainprocess can take place domestically.
Production of livestock increased over the past three years to reach 11.3 million tons in 2008 from the 10.6 million tons in 2007, and 9.9 million tons in 2006.Meat processing capacity is at 400,000 tons and 140 production units (2009).In 2008, per capita meat consumption was 26 kg.
Access to the Caspian Sea, the Persian Gulf, the Gulf of Oman, and many river basins provides Iran the potential to develop excellent fisheries. The government assumed control of commercial fishing in 1952. One government-owned enterprise, the Northern Sheelat Company, was established in 1952, and a second, the Southern Sheelat Company, was established in 1961. In recent years, illegal and off-season fishing, discharge of industrial and agricultural pollutants, overfishing by other Caspian littoral states, and other unfavorable conditions have endangered Caspian fish resources. Between 1990 and 2004, Iran's total annual Caspian Sea catch declined from 98,000 tons to 32,533 tons, including 463 tons of sturgeon, which yields high-quality caviar.
Iran has 1,786 kilometers of coastline on the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman. These southern waters are rich in fish and other marine resources. In 2004 the catch off the southern coast totaled 299,000 tons. This represented an average annual increase of 12.6 percent since 1976. The southern catch either is used directly by households and restaurants or processed and preserved by industry. Expansion of the fishery infrastructure would enable the country to harvest an estimated 700,000 tons of fish annually from the southern waters. However, increased pollution from the oil industry and other enterprises poses a serious threat to this area's fishing industry.
Since the Revolution, increased attention has been focused on producing fish from inland waters. Between 1976 and 2004, the combined take from inland waters by the state and private sectors increased from 1,100 tons to 110,175 tons.
Some 692,000 tons of aquatics will be produced across the country by the end of the 2008, of which 236,000 tons would be bred and the rest fished from the sea. 
Per capita consumption of seafood in Iran will reach 8.5 kg by March 2009 and 10 kg a year later.
Caviar:Iraniancaviarexport is expected to reach $22 million by March 2009.Iran is the world's largest producer and exporter of caviar in the world, exporting more than 300 tonnes annually.
In 2005 Iran's forest area totaled about 11 million hectares, approximately 7 percent of the country's surface area.Adequate rainfall and a favorable climate have created 1.5 million hectares of dense forest in the Caspian region. The remainder is distributed among western forests (3.6 million hectares), southern forests (434,000 hectares), desert forests (620,000 hectares), and forests scattered in other locations.Supervised by the Department of Natural Resources, the Caspian forests produced 820,000 cubic meters of timber products in 2004, more than 90 percent of which was for industrial use.The largest and most valuable woodland areas are in theCaspianregion and the northern slopes of the Elburz Mts., where many of the forests are commercially exploitable and include both hardwoods and softwoods.Although forests and pastures are nationalized and 12 percent of forested land is nominally protected, forest destruction by the private sector is routine.Limited forest areas, mismanagement, and destruction have compelled Iran to import lumber and wood products. In addition, forest fires destroy 20,000 hectares of forest area each year.Between 1954 and 2004, an estimated 41 percent of Iran's forest land was lost.According to the former director of Iran'sDepartment of Environment (Iran), the rate of destruction of forestland amounts to 100,000 hectares per year.
Agriculture has a long history and tradition in Iran. As early as 10,000 BCE, the earliest known domestication of thegoathad taken place in the Iranian plateau.By 5000BCE, wine was being fermented in Iran,and by as early as 7th century CE, thewindmillhad been invented in Persia for the first time in history.
Fruits such as thepeachfirst found their way into Europe fromPersia, as indicated by their Latin name, persica, from which (by way of the French) we have the English word "peach."As didtulips, which were also first cultivated in ancient Persiaandspinach, the word Spinach itself derived from the Persian word اسفناج Esfenaj. The Chinese referred to it in 647CE as 'the herb of Persia'. In 400BCE, a form ofice creamwas in use in Persia,and the ancestor of thecookieis said to have come from Persia (from the Persian koolucheh) in the 7th century according to many sources.
Fifth century BCE Persia was even the source for introduction of the domesticatedchickeninto Europe. The mid fifth century BCE poet Cratinus (according to the later Greek author "Athenaeus") for example calls the chicken "the Persian alarm". In Aristophanes's comedy The Birds (414 BC) a chicken is called "the Median bird", which points to its introduction from Persis.
TheQanat, a subterranean aqueduct used for irrigation in agriculture, was one of the most significant and successful achievements of the Persian tradition. Qanats were in use millennia ago, and are still in use in contemporaryIran.
A boom in the production and export ofcottonmade Iran the richest region of theIslamic caliphatein the ninth and tenth centuries. Yet in the eleventh century, because of colder temperatures, Iran's impressiveagricultural economyentered a steep decline, bringing the country's primacy to an end.
Modern agriculture in Iran dates back to the 1820s, whenAmir Kabir, the Chief Minister toNaser al-Din Shahand a symbol of reform and modernism in Iran, undertook a number of changes to the traditional agricultural system. Such changes included importing modified seeds and signing collaboration contracts with other countries. The first agricultural school was founded about a hundred years ago and theAgriculture Bankwas established in 1933. TheMinistry of Agricultureis currently overseeing and implementing the government's policies in the agricultural sector.
Of the 162.2 million hectares of land in Iran, approximately 19 million hectares is agricultural land. This constitutes 12% of the country's land area. The agricultural sector in Iran currently constitutes 13.9% of GDP and agricultural products form about 30% ofIran's non-oil exports.
The agricultural sector faces a number of challenges in Iran, the two most important being low rainfall and the impact offluctuations in oil revenues. Unsurprisingly, agricultural production is directly correlated to the amount ofrainfall. The relatively dry climate of most ofIran's regionsmakes water availability a vital factor in production. For instance, a drought in 2007 damaged agricultural output and drove it down to 9.3% of GDP.
Another influential factor isoil revenues. Historically, in periods of highoil pricesand the consequent petrodollar windfall, imports accelerate rapidly in virtually all consumption categories including agricultural products. This, in turn, results in crowding out domestic production and damage to the agriculture sector. After the oil price spikes following 1973, agricultural imports also increased dramatically and caused significant damage to domestic production. Between 1970 and 1976, agricultural imports grew at the staggering annual rate of 35%. This experience was repeated in the past couple of years when oil prices were at or over $100 per barrel; the result is that agricultural imports have increased at a rapid pace and foreign products now form a sizeable chunk of the household consumption basket. Over the past few years, there have been significant price increases in agricultural products in Iran. This is due both to rising domestic demand and to rising global commodity prices.
TheIranian governmentsupports the agricultural sector in a number of ways. Like many other countries, the agricultural sector is heavilysubsidised by the Iranian government. Each year, the government guarantees the purchase of wheat from the farmers at a pre-specialized price to protect them from seasonality in the market prices. The government also pays a wide range of subsidies for improvements in production methods, the use of fertilisers and pesticides, and agricultural research. Nonetheless, there still exist considerable opportunities to improve efficiency in the agricultural sector. For instance, only 10% of farms are equipped with modernirrigation facilitiesand the rest are still farmed using legacy methods.
The market mechanism for agricultural products is not particularly developed given the traditional nature of the agricultural sector and the numerous governmental interventions in the market prices. The market mainly consists of a large number of retail traders who purchase the crops from the farmers in small quantities and bring them to the major traders in the bazaar, which is the system that was the predecessor to the modern markets. In order to improve market efficiency and transparency, the Iranian government has allowed trading of agricultural products on theIran Mercantile Exchange(IME) for the past seven years. Nonetheless, given the direct impact of the prices of agricultural products on people's daily lives and welfare, the government actively intervenes in the market by setting prices, importing products in large amounts, subsidising certain products, and restricting exports in order to supply domestic demand.
With thesubsidies reform plan implemented, many experts are hopeful that not only will government intervention and price distortions in agricultural products be reduced, but also that a fundamental restructuring will take place in the agriculture sector. The government has recently quadrupled bread prices as part of the plan. In addition, the pricing of a number of other products that was previously done by the government is now to be left to the market mechanism. More importantly, fuel, water and electricity prices have increased significantly. The government has still kept prices lowest for agriculture in comparison to household and industrial consumers. Nonetheless, the high level of inefficiency in the agricultural sector from irrigation to harvesting, is expected to be fundamentally reformed.
With anamazingly diverse climate, very high local and regional demand and an educated workforce of more than 100,000 in this field, Iran's agricultural sector is clearly underdeveloped and has immense potential for investment and growth. According to a former agriculture minister, deserts in Iran are spreading, South Alborz and East Zagros will be uninhabitable and people will have to migrate. Out of 75 million people in Iran, 45 million will have uncertain circumstances.
After nearly achieving agricultural self-sufficiency in the 1960s, Iran reached the point in 1979 where 65 percent of its food had to be imported. Declining productivity was blamed on the use of modernfertilizers, which had inadvertently scorched the thin Iranian soil. Unresolvedland reformissues, a lack of economic incentives to raise surplus crops, and low profit ratios combined to drive increasingly large segments of the farm population into urban areas.
Since 1979 commercial farming has replaced subsistence farming as the dominant mode of agricultural production. The 1979Revolutionsought self-sufficiency in foodstuffs as part of its overall goal of decreased economic dependence on the West. Higher government subsidies for grain and other staples and expanded short-term credit andtax exemptions for farmerscomplying with government quotas were intended by the new regime to promote self-sufficiency. But by early 1987, Iran was actually more dependent on agricultural imports than in the 1970s.
By 1997, the gross value of products in Iran's agricultural sector had reached $25 billion. In 2000, the Construction Jihad Organization and the Ministry of Agriculture were merged by national legislation, to form the newMinistry of Agricultural Jihad.
The 1999-2000 drought reduced overall GDP by about 4.4%, and resulted in decreased non-oil exports, increased food imports, and a rise in inflation.In 2003, a quarter of Iran's non-oil exports were agricultural based. In 2004 an agriculturalboursestarted trading agricultural and related products in the country.Iran's agricultural sector contributed 14.1 percent of the GDP in 2004, employing a third of the labor force and constituting over 80% of Iran's food supply.
Benefiting from 123,580 square kilometers of land suitable for agriculture, the agricultural sector is one of the major contributors to Iran's economy. It accounts for almost 13% of Iran's GDP, 20% of the employed population, 23% of non-oil exports, 82% of domestically consumed foodstuffs and 90% of raw materials used in the food processing industry (2008).
The focus areas for agriculture are:
In 2009 seven hundred agricultural complexes were under construction on 60,000 hectares of farmlands across the country. Chicken farms, animal husbandries, fish farming pools and greenhouses are built in these complexes.
Mechanized agricultural has had a slow but steady growth in Iran. Industrial facilities inTabrizandArakare Iran's largest producers ofmachineryand equipment for the agricultural sector. 12,000combine harvestersand 300,000tractorsare currently used in the sector (2007).Tabriz Tractor Manufacturing Company, which was founded four decades ago, employs almost 10,000 people. It produces 30,000 tractors annually, a large part of which is exported.Iran declared self-sufficiency in irrigation and agricultural machinery in 2008.As of 2021, Iran’s agricultural mechanization coefficient has reached 1.65 horsepower per hectare.
There are 22,000 food industries units in the country (2009). The capacity of these units has increased to 60 million tons from 8 million tons in the pre-Islamic Revolution era.Agricultural production stood at 108 million tons in 2008, which indicates a 20 million ton increase from 2007.
Iranian government policy aims to reachself-sufficiencyin food production and by 2007, Iran had attained 96 percent self-sufficiency inessentialagricultural products.But wastage in storing, processing, marketing and consumption of food products remained a concern (30% of production according to some sources).
The following is the Iranian out-put listed according to the largest global producer rankings in 2007:
The following items are the most important agricultural commodities in Iran, listed by their international value inUnited States dollarin 2007:
In addition to smaller productions of other agricultural products.
Agricultural exports stood at $1.2 billion in 2004-5 and $2.6 billion in 2007–8.Major agriculturalexportsinclude fresh and dried fruits, nuts, animal hides, processed foods,caviarand spices.Pistachio, raisins, dates andsaffronare the first four export products, from the viewpoint of value.Close to 8 million tons of agricultural products are exported annually (2008).But according to theCentral Bank of Iran, only 3.2 million tons of "agricultural products" were exported in 2008 with a total value of $3.2 billion "which showed a 6.1 percent increase over the previous year".Agricultural and food stuff exports in years 2012-13 ending 21 March stood at $5.2 billion.
A total of 12,198 entities are engaged in the Iranian food industry, or 12% of all entities in
the industry sector. The sector also employs approximately 328,000 people or 16.1% of the
entire industry sector's workforce.Iran exported $736 million worth offoodstuffsin 2007 and $1 billion (~600,000 tonnes) in 2010.Soft drinks, mineral water, biscuit, chocolate, confection, edible oil, dairies, conserved foods and fruits, jam and jelly, macaroni, fruit juice and yeast were among the main exports to Iraq, Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and other Central Asian countries, Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Oman, Syria, Germany, Spain, the Netherlands, France, Canada, Venezuela, Japan, South Korea and Turkey.
In theory, Iranian agricultural policy is intended to support farmers and encourage the production of strategically important crops. The policy is twofold: first, to purchase certain crops at guaranteed prices and second, to encourage the production of specific crops through farm subsidies. The policy of purchasing agricultural crops from farmers at guaranteed prices was put in place in the 1989 crop year. On average, the guaranteed prices increased at the rate of inflation over the past 15 years. Individual subsidy levels for major crops, however, vary annually.
In the 1990s and early 2000s, government agricultural planning was only marginally successful. According to government figures, during the 1990s—coincident with the first two Islamic Republic economic plans—only 40.5 percent of the agricultural modernization projected by those plans was accomplished, and only 40.2 percent of government and private-sector financial commitments materialized.
Because wheat is considered Iran's most strategically important crop, it received the largest subsidies, and its production grew at the fastest rate between 1990 and 2005. From FY 2003 to FY 2004, wheat subsidies increased by 17.2 percent, reaching a record of US$1.5 billion. Between 1981 and 2004, the area cultivated with wheat remained stable at 5 million hectares, but wheat production increased from 5.7 million to more than 11 million tons.
Beginning in 1990, the government expanded its agricultural support programs to include a guaranteed purchase price for major agricultural crops, subsidies, favorable interest rates, government investment, and favorable foreign-trade policies. Primarily because of government support for domestic agriculture, between 1989 and 2003 the import volumes of wheat, sugar, and red meat declined by 77.7 percent, 39.6 percent, and 88.2 percent, respectively. Concurrently, the value of agricultural exports increased from US$461.5 million in 1989 to US$1.7 billion in 2004. However, over the same period total food and live animal imports increased from US$1.37 billion to US$2.65 billion.
In the past, the Iranian private sector handled the bulk of the country's imports of grain and oilseeds, but since 2012 the government has stepped up operations through itsGovernment Trading Corporation (GTC).Other notable agencies are the Livestock Affairs Logistic Co (SLAL) and the Government Grain Trading Agency.
DuringMahmoud Ahmadinejad's presidency between 2005 and 2013 imports of agricultural products increased rapidly and reached $13.214 Billion by year 2012-13 ending 21 March whereas agricultural imports in 2004 stood at $3.5 billion.
As of 2015, Iran is among the world's top four buyers of wheat, barley and rice and one of the 10 largest importers of raw sugar.It has been reported that some imported wheat has beenresold intothe Iranian government's farmer purchasing scheme at a profit because oflack of import duties for wheat and barley, thus artificially increasing imports at the expense of domestic production.
Iran is signatory to bi-lateral protocols that set the standards for many of its agricultural imports including meat and wheat. The protocols are usually negotiated on a country-by-country basis and it's commonplace for Iran to inspect produce prior to shipment.
Iran Customsand theIran Veterinary Organizationare the policing bodies for imported food products, including dairy.
Meat imports require written authorization from theMinistries of Commerceand Agricultural Jihad. TheIranian Governmentinsists on the presence of Shiite clergymen and inspections by the Veterinary Organization during anylivestock slaughter.
The Codex Commission of Food Stuff, established in 2002 is in charge of setting and developing standards and quality and health regulations.
The Plant Protection Organization is in charge of issuing export and import licenses for all kinds of plants and parts thereof including bulbs, cuttings, roots, fruits, saplings, and seeds, as well as the issuance of licenses - which are solely of a technical nature - for importation, exportation, production, transformation and packaging of all kinds of pesticides, herbicides, and plant hormones.
In 2005, Iran's firstgenetically modified(GM) rice was approved by national authorities and is being grown commercially for human consumption. In addition to GM rice, Iran has produced several GM plants in the laboratory, such as insect-resistant maize; cotton; potatoes and sugar beets; herbicide-resistant canola; salinity- and drought-tolerant wheat; and blight-resistant maize and wheat.Yet, despite thecontroversy surrounding GM foodand government restrictions on the production of biotech products, Iran imports $5 billion ofgenetically modified cropsa year because of laxed laws (2015).
There are different ongoing research in agricultural fields in Iran which are mostly focused on local problems and requirements. Iran has also a very focused and intensivenanotechnologyresearch program for agricultural applications.