TEHRAN (Iran News) Speaking to ILNA, Seyed Mehdi Hosseini Yazdi, the association’s president, identified the main causes of the crisis as the lack of proper foreign currency allocation and a flawed quota system.

He said that around 200 companies active in the sector have been left in limbo, and that 150 private-sector stakeholders have signed a letter to the Minister of Agriculture Jihad in protest against the current situation.

Hosseini Yazdi explained that foreign currency allocations for pesticide imports were divided into two six-month periods over the past year, but even during the first phase, “multiple problems” emerged.

“We repeatedly demanded the publication of the allocation list to ensure transparency, but only information for a few select companies was released, leaving the rest uncertain,” he said.

He sharply criticized the quota-based system for distributing pesticides, calling it “disastrous and wrong.” He also noted that Article 44 (on privatization) has not been properly implemented in the fertilizer sector either, and that currency allocations continue to be limited and unscientific.

“We have repeatedly written to the president, the first vice president, the agriculture minister, and other relevant authorities, but we have received no response,” he added. “Iran’s Agriculture”

According to Hosseini Yazdi, the current quota system is unprecedented in the history of pesticide imports in Iran.

“In previous years, we faced no such issues. Now, quotas are allocated in impractical and uneconomical amounts — for example, one company is given 120 kilograms while another receives five tons. Importing anything less than a full container is simply not economically viable,” he said.

Hosseini Yazdi also responded to recent claims by an agriculture ministry official that the order-registration process has improved.

“Order registration should, as before, be completed within two days. While some officials claim there are no problems, in reality, flawed quota policies have created serious obstacles for pesticide importers. That’s why 150 protest letters were submitted to the minister in a single meeting,” he stated.

The private sector, he added, considers the current situation one of the most critical periods in the supply of agricultural inputs in the country’s history.

The post Iran’s Agriculture on Alert Amid Pesticide Supply Crisis appeared first on Iran News Daily.

Iran’s Agriculture Deputy Minister Elaborates the Development of the Market-Oriented Farming Systems in the Territory of the Border Rivers Basins

According To Iran News, Hossein Shirzad, who is also the CEO of the Central Organization for Rural Cooperatives of Iran (CORC), in a technical interview made comments on the importance of the development of the market-oriented farming systems in the territory of the Border Rivers basins.

Q1. What is the distinctive point between the farming systems in the territory of the border rivers basins and other regions?

A1. The most significant difference among the border river basins and other regions is the existence of the common basic production resources. Historically, the borders had been drawn based on the political-military concerns rather than geographical homogeneity. Therefore, the ecological and production resources have been divided among the border regions of the different countries. The oil and gas, water and soil, marine as well as the underline water resources are of the most important of the joint production resources of the border regions. This has provoked serious conflicts over the exploitation of common resources, especially in the Middle East.

Among the joint production resources, the water resources matter more than the other ones due to the slow renewability. The investment of Turkey on the controlling and reserving of the common water resources has brought about a strategic advantage for the country in ration to Iraq and Syria. Meanwhile, the bloody wars between Jordan and the Jerusalem occupying regime is another instance of the importance of controlling the border water resources.

Iran’s water resource territory is experiencing highly competitive diplomacy, as well. Currently about 10% of the State’s renewable water resource (about 130 billion CC) is procured from the common basins with the neighboring countries. However, the oil and gas resources are prioritized to the other resources at now, but it is anticipated by decreasing the mentioned resources, shortly, the significance of water resources will be double increases.

The second specification of the border farming systems is the structural and spatial characteristic of the border areas. The production of the border regions is totally market-oriented. Furthermore the dwellers in the border regions share many cultural and linguistic common specifications with neighboring countries. They can access the neighboring countries easier than their countries. The geographical isolation combined with the national and regional identity has created a paradox for the dwellers of the borderline regions in the historical conflicts. Naturally, these conflicts should be resolved through the development of the farming systems based on the integrated national identity.

Q2.What is the basic pivots of the new farming systems in the border river basins? Will they be developed based on the old experiences of the rural production   cooperatives or agro-joint stock companies?

It is worth mentioning that the exploitation planning for border water resources is not a new phenomenon. However, the best pattern should be developed based on the mutual understanding of the neighboring countries on the joint exploitation and registering the water rights in each country’s territory. Furthermore, it should be accepted by the national water and soil doctrine. Aras and Atrak rivers are the distinctive samples of this pattern. Notwithstanding, in some border regions,  applying this doctrine is impeded due to the geomorphologic, political, or spatial heterogeneity between the two-sided of the borders. The Project of 46000 hectares of Sistan and of the river basins of Khuzestan is the most significant examples of these regions. Development of the farming systems in such regions requires adopting distinctive approaches.

Based on the reductionism, the first approach recommends establishing huge concrete structures including dams, tunnels, and transfer facilities. This pattern suffers many critical deficits consisting high of a cost, environmental damages, and triggering home and foreign conflicts in the border regions.

The second approach is the territory comprehensive approach based on the hydraulic farming systems. Observing the rights of the whole stakeholders, the second approach emphasizes first on the propulsion role of water for the regional development, second on the virtual transfer of water to the home country by considering the environmental concerns and international commitments.

From the macro viewpoint, this approach brings about three outcomes including reducing the conflicts originating from the border dwellers’ dual identity, acceleration of their racial and ethnic integrity through reduction of the aftermath of the social and economic isolation, and paving the way of sustainable use of outgoing border water. Performing this approach demands to have a strategically spatial program for development. This program should observe many critical aspects including the economic capacity monitoring, feasibility studies based on the cropping, horticulture, cultivation patterns and accurate calculation of the agricultural inputs (water, labor force, soil…).

Q3. What is the strategically planning framework for development of farming system in the border regions?

The spatial planning refers to the practices used for effective population distribution, fair regional and spatial equilibrium and logical organizing the economic activities in which led to a balanced development among economic prosperity and environmental protection. The spatial planning has four levels including international, national, regional and local .Albeit from the orientation point; it could be problem-oriented, future-oriented and goal-oriented. Considering the geostrategic specification of the border regions and strategic values of the joint water resources, the logical planning framework for development of farming systems in such area refers to a strategically and problem-oriented  planning at the regional level . By region, we mean the basin and neighboring areas of the border river. Obviously, the first priority is solving the problem of the comprehensive development of the water resources with adopting developmental exploitation approach. The form of transferring, the soil quality, land tenure management, ecologic variability, environmental aspects, and hydrology are of the second priority.  The strength point of this framework is observing the sustainable ecologic of the farming systems. The Resiliency of agriculture is decreasing slowly but constantly, because of the aftermaths of environmental crisis and improper cattle breeding and cropping. This will lead to collapsing the civil societies in the rural border regions. No government can afford to face these challenges without the farmers’ community participation. The resilience of the border farming systems should be boosted through climate-change flexibility. The development of the private agro-industry corporations with the joint venture of the banking system could resolve this problem. The vast integrated cropping, linking to the industry , development of the food processing systems, appropriate  financial management of theses large farming system , hiring seasonal and stable workers , constant applying the modern know-how  could led to develop sustainable farming systems. Meanwhile applying the industrial management to make a distinction among working and capital factors, expertise-based work-dividing, fundraising for large horticultural, cropping, and livestock projects is necessary. Cultivating modified seeds, rearing improved cattle and poultry races, and governmental controlling the cultivation patterns of some market-oriented crops could be named as the effective solution of farming systems in the border regions. Furthermore, the establishment of the agile and public organization (Like the development organizations of the 60th  decades including the Khuzestan, Ghazvin, and Jiroft development organization) is required to force the total new structures to only serve the resident farmers in the territory of the border rivers basins. These organizations should be developed based on the viewpoints of the skilled advisors, cheap credit, and partnership of the private sector.

The post Development of the Market-Oriented Farming Systems appeared first on Iran News Daily.

Of the significant measures taken by IME to this end it could be referred to offering agriculture products at guaranteed price instead of the guaranteed purchase of these products by the government, which brought satisfaction for both farmers and the government.

In the framework of the guaranteed-purchase scheme, instead of paying the whole price to the farmers based on the guaranteed purchase, the government pays them just the difference between the base price and the price offered at the IME. In this way the financial burden on the government is reduced noticeably.

Guaranteed-price plan also brings more satisfaction for the farmers as they receive the payment sooner.  And the other advantages of this plan are creating transparency in the trades and also offering the products based on the specified standards in the IME which leads to promotion of their quality.

Also, in this plan prices are set fairly because the dealers are omitted from the chain of sales.

And now, IME has a new plan for more link between commodity and finical markets and it is establishment of some agriculture products funds, as announced by IME Managing Director Hamed Soltani-Nejad in an interview conducted by IRNA on Sunday.

Referring to the creation of a proper ground for the expansion of link between agricultural and financial markets, the official said that the plan for boosting trades of agriculture products at IME has been following up through new measures such as launching derivatives market and now is the time for agriculture products funds.

Establishment of such funds will be in the framework of IME’s macro plans in the current Iranian calendar year (began on March 21), as Soltani-Nejad has said on June 24 that this exchange has prepared ten macro plans to improve its performance during this year.

Making the remarks, during the meeting of IME shareholders, he mentioned development of underlying assets through existing instruments, development of financial instruments for commodity-backed securities, expansion of market size and depth, increasing cooperation with other organizations, and strengthening IME brand as some of the mentioned macro plans.

While IME has some prominent plans for this year, its performance has been also very positive in the past year.

Applying new financial instruments in Iranian capital market was one of the achievements of the country’s exchange markets during the past year.

In this due, IME launched “option” in early March 2019 in an approach to diversify financing methods for agricultural products.

Option is a contract which gives the buyer (the owner or holder of the option) the right, but not the obligation, to buy or sell an underlying asset or instrument at a specified strike price prior to or on a specified date, depending on the form of the option.

All these measures have led to diversity of agricultural products trades at the IME and also formation of a new chain of financial instruments at this market which will be more expanded by establishment of agricultural products funds.

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Some 206,000 hectares are under medicinal plant cultivation in Iran, producing 675,000 tons annually, he said, adding that the area for cultivation such products will increase to 280,000 hectares by fiscal 2021-22.

Iran is home to about 8,500 species of medicinal herbs.

The official added that the move will help boost domestic income and job creation in different parts of the country.

Iran is the world’s biggest producer of saffron and accounts for more than 90% of global production. The country produces an average of 370 tons of saffron on over 108,000 hectares of land annually.

The country is also the world’s number one producer of Damask rose. According to Zeinali, Iran supplies 90% of rosewater in global markets and accounts for 8-10% of rose essence production in the world.

World caraway production is also dominated by Iran. People use caraway oil, fruit, and seeds as medicine.

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Domestic and international companies will showcase their latest products and services in the field of agricultural industries, raw materials, horticultural equipment, irrigation systems, protein industries, prepared and semi-prepared food, processing industries and packaging machinery.

The post Tehran to host ‘Agrofood 2019’ in mid-June appeared first on Iran News Daily.

Khavazi made the remarks on Tue. in conference of “Convention on Biological Diversity” and added, “this issue will enable us to take maximum advantage of global capacity to maintain biodiversity in the country.’

He pointed to two-year backwardness of Iran in submitting report on biodiversity and continued, “with the delegation of biodiversity authority to the Ministry of Agriculture, compilation of these reports will begin in very near future.”

However, effective steps have bene taken in order to ameliorate current situation of the country in the Convention on Biological Diversity, he added.

The post Iran to play an outstanding role in CBD appeared first on Iran News Daily.

He added that the US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has so far added 36 items from food processing and supplementary equipment to the list of sanctions. Some 975 Iranian companies and individuals are also under US sanctions, among which at least two banks and 12 companies are active in the food and medicine fields, he added.

The deputy minister also maintained that the Swiss initiative that was supposed to act as a guarantee for the transfer of money for Iranian medicine and foodstuff by bypassing US sanctions has yet to be settled.

Shirzad went on to stress, however, that the Ministry of Agriculture has played an effective role in neutralizing the US measures against the food security in Iran by “increasing the volume of strategic reserves, reducing dependency and vast storage of basic goods.”

The post US new sanctions aim to threaten food security in Iran appeared first on Iran News Daily.

 Iran exported 2.31 million tons of fruits and vegetables worth $866 million during the past eight months of the current fiscal (March 21- Nov. 21), a senior official at Iran’s Trade ‎Promotion Organization (TPO) said.

The post Fruit, vegetable exports up 59% in 8 months appeared first on Iran News Daily.