BAKU, Azerbaijan, January 23. A whopping 1.66 million tons of dates have been harvested from date orchards in Iran during the current Iranian year (from March 20, 2024 through March 20, 2025), the official representative of Iran's Ministry of Agriculture Zahra Jalili-Moqaddam told reporters, Trend reports.
According to her, dates in the specified volume were harvested from 282,000 ha of orchards.
Jalili-Moqaddam noted that dates are grown in the country mainly in Khuzestan, Sistan and Baluchestan, Kerman, Pars, Bushehr, and Hormozgan provinces.
The official added that Iran is recognized as the world's third country in date production, and there are more than 400 types of dates grown in the country.
She said that various works have been carried out in the past three years to rehabilitate date orchards, eliminate old orchards, plant orchards in date-growing regions using modern technologies, establish a date export terminal, etc.
To note, Iran is the third largest producer of dates in the world, after Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Iran's date exports during eight months of the current Iranian year (from March 20 through November 2024) amounted to 194,000 tons worth $175 million.