With development in rapeseed cultivation, it is expected that 50-60 percent of the country’s vegetable oil consumption will be produced domestically within the next ten years, deputy agriculture minister, Abbad Keshavarz, announced on Sunday, ISNA reported. He described the current provision of 90 percent of the country’s needed rapeseed through imports as “a flaw that must be fixed,” announcing that the ministry has outlined a 10-year plan to reduce the imports by 50 percent. In the current Iranian calendar year (started March 20), about 60,000 hectares of farmland is allocated to rapeseed cultivation, he said, noting that the southern Khouzestan Province and central Markazi Province along with northern Gilan and Mazandaran provinces account for most of the cultivations.
