TEHRAN- As announced by a director in the Iranian Agriculture Ministry, the country’s export of potato increased by 83 percent in the past Iranian calendar year (ended on March 20), as compared to its previous year.

Hossein Asghari announced that 950,000 tons of potato has been exported in the past year, while the figure was 518,000 tons in its preceding year.

The official also said that more than 5.5 million tons of potato was produced in the country during the past year, and added that the average production of potato at each hectare has increased by 500 kilograms to 37.1 tons in the past year, from 36.6 tons in its preceding year.

He said potato was cultivated in 149,000 hectares of land in the past year.

According to the Acting Head of Agriculture Ministry’s Economic Affairs Department Shahrokh Shajari, 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).

Last week, President Hassan Rouhani inaugurated several agricultural projects worth 81.47 trillion rials (about $1.93 billion) through video conference in various provinces.

The mentioned projects which were put into operation in a variety of fields including water and soil, fisheries, livestock and poultry, are going to provide job opportunities for over 42,300 people.

Some 3,913 of the inaugurated projects were related to installing new irrigation systems that covered an area of 72,000 hectares, while 150 projects were implemented in the fisheries sector and 571 projects were related to livestock and poultry sectors.

The inaugurated projects include some pressurized irrigation systems, several projects for increasing irrigation efficiency and water consumption management, some fish and shrimp breeding plants, improvement and organization of fishing ports, and several dairy production units.

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.

Iran is situated in a dry plateau with limited water resources, so most of the country’s development projects in the agriculture sector have been focused on decreasing and managing water consumption by introducing new irrigation methods. 

MA/MA