TEHRAN - Iranian farmers produced 2.9 million tons of rice during the past Iranian calendar year of 1398 (ended on March 19), according to Director-General of the Agriculture Ministry's Grains and Essential Goods Department Faramak Aziz-Karimi.

As the official told IRNA, the rise in the production came after the significant increases in the rainfalls across the country in the past spring.

“The average area under rice cultivation in the country in the past three years was about 605,000 hectares, of which 70 percent is concentrated in Gilan and Mazandaran provinces (about 427,000 hectares),” the official said.

Back in September 2019, the Secretary of Iran Rice Association Jamil Alizadeh Shayeq had put the country’s rice output at 2.6 million tons.

According to Shayeq, the country’s rice production stood between 2.2 and 2.3 million tons in the Iranian calendar year of 1397 (March 2018-March 2019).

In October 2019, Deputy Agriculture Minister Abdolmehdi Bakhshandeh announced that Iran has become completely self-sufficient in rice production as it plans to cut up to two million tons of imports a year.

The Statistical Center of Iran estimates that Iranians consume approximately 35 kilograms of rice per person each year. That would mean a domestic demand of nearly three million tons for a country of 83 million people.

Bakhshandeh said rice self-sufficiency would save Iran more than $1.1 billion in imports, adding that it would also be a major success amid efforts to minimize the impacts of the American sanctions on food security in the country.

EF/MA