TEHRAN- Production of tomatoes in Iran has reached 6.3 million tons since the beginning of the current Iranian calendar year (March 20), the head of the Central Organization for Rural Cooperatives of Iran announced.

Ali Tahmasbi said that of the mentioned amount, 600,000 tons have been produced in the greenhouses, and there is no problem for the exports of the product, ILNA reported.

Iran’s agricultural production is expected to reach 130 million tons in the current Iranian calendar year (ends on March 20, 2021), according to the Agriculture Minister Kazem Khavazi.

Khavazi put the country’s agriculture production in the previous Iranian calendar year at 125 million tons.

“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.”

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.

MA/MA