About 23 million tons of basic commodities such as wheat, rice, vegetable oil and sugar worth $8.3 billion were purchased by the government last Iranian year (ended March 20, 2015) to ensure food security and maintain strategic reserves, says deputy agriculture minister and head of Government Trading Corporation, Ali Qanbari. According to the official, the purchases included 6.7 million tons of wheat from domestic farmers at guaranteed prices, in addition to 276,000 tons of unprocessed sugar, 259,000 tons of unprocessed vegetable oil, and 76,000 tons of rice. The deputy minister noted that the country does not require wheat imports this year as wheat reserves are sufficient to meet domestic demand.
