TEHRAN - Head of Iran’s Agricultural Mechanization Development Center Kambiz Abbasi announced that up to 95 percent of agricultural machinery in Iran is manufactured domestically, IRNA reported on Saturday.

According to Abbasi, the country’s agricultural production has increased by 350 percent due to the implementation of the Agriculture Ministry’s mechanization programs.

Abbasi noted that Iran’s domestic industry of agricultural machinery has experienced a boom during the past 10 years thanks to the Comprehensive Agricultural Mechanization Plan ratified by the government for which so far over 200 trillion rials (about $4.76 billion) has been invested.

One of the basic approaches followed by the ministry for promoting agricultural mechanization in the country over the past few years has been holding international and domestic exhibitions, such as the IFarm Agricultural Exhibition, he said.

“By holding such exhibitions, we have been able to introduce new technologies in the field of agricultural production,” he noted.

The official had previously said that the Agricultural Mechanization Development Center plans to increase the country’s agricultural mechanization coefficient to 2.3 horsepower per hectare in the current Iranian calendar year (started on March 21).

Iran’s agricultural mechanization coefficient has currently reached 1.65 horsepower per hectare.

“Our ultimate goal is to inject enough machines into the sector to improve the status and degree of mechanization in the process of agricultural production,” Abbasi said back in April.

According to the official, the Agriculture Ministry has been allocating a separate credit line for the mechanization of the agriculture sector every year, so that since the Iranian calendar year of 1392 so far, nine credit lines have been opened for this sector.

In the past forty years, since the Islamic Revolution, Iran has witnessed a remarkable improvement in various sectors and the agriculture industry has been one of the areas in which the country has undergone huge development.

Implementing billions of dollars of development, research, and educational projects across the country is an indication of the significant improvements in this sector.

EF/MA