Speaking at the 42nd Session of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) Conference which was held virtually, Khavazi said: “The consequences of the COVID-19 crisis have challenged the functioning of the food value chain and the flow of agricultural products into the market and, the pandemic has affected all areas from production to processing, packaging, transportation, marketing, and also consumption.”

“It [the pandemic] has also affected the access of lower classes of the society to healthy and nutritious food at affordable prices. Small and medium-sized enterprises which are crucial to food security and employment have also been negatively impacted,” he added.

He further noted that the coronavirus experience has shown that many areas of the food industry have the potential to react early and swiftly to crisis. Many companies have been forced to use alternative channels instead of the usual business approaches; for instance, focusing on new and more local markets, relying on innovative management plans, and investing in human resources to deal with future dilemmas.

“In the Islamic Republic of Iran, agricultural planners have always tried to adopt appropriate agricultural and food strategies and policies in various fields such as water and soil protection, education and promotion, increasing sustainable production, increasing the productivity of resources and factors of production, modifying production patterns and improving safety and quality of agricultural products and other items.”

The official finally noted that despite all the negative impacts of the coronavirus pandemic the agriculture sector in Iran is consciously thriving and the production of this sector has increased by 22 percent for grains and seeds and over 50 percent for horticulture products.

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Over 8,000 billion tomans have been invested in the projects which are mostly on fisheries and water supply.

The agricultural projects were inaugurated through a video conference due to the pandemic.

Every week, the president opens several important projects on petrochemicals, oil, industry, tourism, sports, infrastructure, development and health to follow the strategy of “Surge in Production” declared by the Supreme Leader.

Nearly 14,000 hectares of agricultural lands in arid plains in Iran’s Sistan region have started using irrigation thanks to a government project which seeks to eliminate poverty and boost jobs in the underprivileged region.

President Rouhani ordered the rollout of the project on Thursday using a video conference call from his office in Tehran.

The lands located near the border with Pakistan in southeastern Iran are spread across 729 villages mostly in Zabol County in the province of Sistan and Baluchestan.

Agriculture minister Kazem Khavazi said that irrigation project would boost food security in Iran’s largest but poorest province.

Rouhani ordered the launch of over 4,600 agricultural projects on Thursday as part of his weekly inauguration campaigns.

His website said the projects had cost over 81 trillion rials (over $338 million) in spending, adding that they would create a total of 42,300 new jobs across the country.

The projects included nearly 4,000 drip irrigation systems, some 571 livestock and poultry units as well as a total of 150 fishery and aquaculture projects.

Khavazi said drip irrigation systems is now installed at nearly 2.5 million hectares of farming lands across Iran, almost double the area reported in 2013.

He said Iran had also reached a point of full self-sufficiency in manufacturing parts and components of irrigation systems inside the country.

On fisheries and aquaculture, the minister said output in the sector had seen a four-fold increase in eight years to 49,000 metric tons a year, adding that Iran is currently earning nearly $0.5 billion a year from fisheries exports.

Khavazi said Iran is now a net exporter of butter, a product for which the country used to spend big for 50,000 tons of imports each year.

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