TEHRAN – Nearly six million hectares of land is expected to go under wheat cultivation in the current crop year (late September 2020-mid August 2021), IRNA quoted Esmaeil Esfandiari-Pour, the head of the Agriculture Ministry’s Wheat Program as, saying on Sunday.

The mentioned cultivation is expected to meet the country’s wheat needs in the next Iranian calendar year (starts in March 2021), Esfandiari-Pour said.

According to the official, so far 372,000 tons of seeds from different varieties have been prepared by private companies for the current crop year and their distribution has begun in the northwestern and western provinces of the country since late September and will continue until late December.

He further noted that all the wheat seeds distributed in the country are certified seeds of improved varieties, adding: “Over the past six years, about 40 percent of wheat seeds grown in Iran have been certified and the rest are local varieties consumed by farmers themselves.”

Back in May, Esfandiari-Pour had said that the country’s wheat production exceeded 14 million tons in the current Iranian calendar year (began on March 19).

The wheat harvest season in Iran is approximately 4.5 months starting in early April up to mid-August.

Based on the Agriculture Ministry’s data, Iranian farmers produced nearly 14.5 million tons of wheat in the previous Iranian calendar year, 1.2 million tons more than the figure for its preceding year.

According to Esfandiari-Pour, who is also the advisor to the Agriculture Minister, Iran’s use of improved seed varieties over the past five years has boosted the country’s self-sufficiency in wheat by more than 30 percent.

Good precipitation across Iran has also resulted in a prosperous harvest in various agricultural sectors across the country.

Iran’s wheat harvest is enough to make the county self-sufficient in the production of this strategic crop for the fifth year in a row, according to the official.

EF/MA