TEHRAN - Iran’s minister of agriculture said the volume of greenhouse products rose from 3.1 million tons at the beginning of the current administration (August 2021) to 4.319 million tons at the end of its second year in office.

In this period, the greenhouse land area (constructed and under construction) increased from 20,699 ha to 23,238 ha at large, showing a considerable hike, Mohammad Ali Nikbakht said.

He pointed to the high capacities of various regions of the country for the development of greenhouse cultivation and said it can contribute to saving water resources, boosting production, generating employment, and exporting agricultural products overseas.

Elsewhere in his remarks, Nikbakht pointed to the current year’s slogan of “Production Jump with the People’s Participation” and noted that the Ministry of Agriculture has devised a comprehensive program for the realization of the objectives of the motto, YJC reported.

Supporting the construction of greenhouses and improving the cultivation of agricultural products can lead to production growth, generation of employment, development of deprived and underprivileged areas, self-reliance of rural families, promotion of the level of food security and increasing the export of agricultural products, he emphasized.

In last July, the director of the Agriculture Ministry's Greenhouse Development Program announced that 23,000 hectares of lands are under greenhouse cultivation throughout the country.

Mehdi Lotfi-Zadeh also said that 150,000 hectares of new greenhouses are planned to be set up in the country during a five-year program based on the Seventh National Development Plan.

As stated by the deputy agriculture minister, the development of greenhouse cultivation is a major policy of the Agriculture Ministry.

In this regard, several projects have been defined and introduced to the banks, and as soon as the notification is made, the projects will receive facilities and their implementation will begin, the official added.

In recent years, the water crisis has caused serious challenges in Iran’s agriculture sector.

To solve this problem, several solutions, including the implementation of pressurized irrigation projects and greenhouse cultivation, have been emphasized by experts and officials in this sector.

Iranian Agriculture Ministry’s Greenhouse Development Program is one of the priority projects of this ministry which aims at increasing productivity, efficiency, and water consumption management in the agriculture sector.

The program was approved in the Iranian calendar year 1395 (which ended on March 20, 2017) under the framework of the National Resilient Economy Plan.

The development of the country’s agricultural parks and greenhouses not only is going to create new job opportunities but also increases the country’s non-oil exports and helps preserve the environment and the national water and soil resources.

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