TEHRAN- As announced by a provincial official, 8,000 hectares of land are under medicinal plant cultivation in North Khorasan province, in the northeast of Iran.

Safdar Safdari, the director for horticulture affairs in the province’s Agriculture Department, said that 1,728 species of medicinal plants are cultivated in Iran, of which 423 species are cultivated in North Khorasan.

According to the chairman of the Union of Medicinal Plants Exporters of Iran, the country’s export of medicinal plants can be increased through compliance more with the world standards.

Mohammad-Ali Rezaei Kamal-Abad stated that world standards are increasing due to the health-oriented consumption of herbal products, and failure to comply with these standards will lead to the return or destruction of these products.

“In the past years, poisons have entered the country, which are not only not used in other countries, but have also caused water and soil pollution in our country”, he lamented.

Referring to the importance of agricultural product export standardization, he added: “Standardization is done in our country, but this standardization is not up-to-date. With the coordination of ministries, expenditure and updating of information can help to standardize agricultural products and develop the export of these products”, he commented.

He said that having more than 11 climates out of 13 climates, Iran has 8,000 varieties of medicinal plants, which is at least twice as much as Europe.

MA