BAKU, Azerbaijan, October 24. Iran expects to harvest 78 percent more rapeseed this planting year (from September 23, 2023, through September 21, 2024) than the previous year, said Sadollah Mansour, an official of the Iranian Ministry of Agriculture Jihad, Trend reports.
The official noted that the country hopes to harvest more than 250,000 tons of rapeseed in the current planting year.
Meanwhile, in the previous planting year (September 23, 2022 through September 22, 2023), Iran harvested only 140,000 tons of rapeseed.
According to Mansour, Iranian farmers planted rapeseed on 200,000 hectares of land this year. If 150,000 hectares of this area are productive, the forecast will come true.
The official also said that rapeseed planting started on September 6 and ended on October 6. It took place mostly in nine provinces: East Azerbaijan, West Azerbaijan, Alborz, Chaharmahal, and Bakhtiari, Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad, North Khorasan and Razavi Khorasan provinces of Iran.
Mansour added that in the previous year, farmers planted rapeseed on 103,000 hectares of land. But drought reduced the productive area to 88,000 hectares.
Reportedly, 109,000 tons of rapeseed harvested in Iran in the previous planting year were purchased under a guarantee by Iran's Government Trading Corporation (GTC), and the remaining 31,000 tons were purchased by the private sector. The value of the rapeseed purchased by the GTC was 23 trillion rials (about $548 million). So far, farmers have received 78 percent of those funds.
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