TEHRAN – Iran’s agricultural production is expected to reach 130 million tons in the current Iranian calendar year (March 2020-March 2021), according to the Agriculture Minister Kazem Khavazi.

Speaking in a meeting with some officials from Golestan Province, Khavazi put the country’s agriculture production in the previous Iranian calendar year (ended on March 19) at 125 million tons, IRNA reported.

“This year, the government is paying special attention to the agricultural sector for achieving self-sufficiency in most agricultural and strategic products,” the official said.

He noted that apart from increasing production, the Agriculture Ministry also seeks to increase productivity by developing processing industries in this sector.

The minister pointed to the sales of raw materials as important damage to the agricultural sector and said: "Currently, seven million tons of garden products, four million tons of vegetables, seven million tons of tomatoes and five million tons of potatoes are produced in the country, all of which need to be processed and not to be sold raw.”

The Agriculture Minister visited the northern Golestan Province for inaugurating some agricultural projects on Tuesday.

In late June, the Acting Head of Agriculture Ministry’s Economic Affairs Department Shahrokh Shajari had said that development of new irrigation systems and greenhouses to improve water productivity, development of aquaculture, especially shrimp and fish farming at sea, and development of medicinal plants cultivation are among the plans underway by the ministry for increasing productivity in the agricultural sectors.

Noting that one of the major indicators of the development of the agricultural sector is the value-added, the official said in most years, the growth of value-added in the agricultural sector has been more than the growth of the country's non-oil Gross Domestic Products (GDP).

“The value-added growth of the agricultural sector last year was 8.8 percent, despite the negative growth of the domestic value-added,” he said.

According to Shajari, production of grains reached 83.5 million tons in the previous year and the figure is expected to reach 86 million tons in the current year.

As for the horticulture sector, the production of this sector reached 23 million tons in the past year and the output is expected to increase by 1.7 million tons in the current year.

EF/MA