Iran on Wednesday rejected a report by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) on the country's reduced grain production in the farming year which ended September 30, 2014.
Latest data shows that Iran produced 10.2 million tons of wheat in the 2013/14 farming year, of which 7 million tons were purchased by the government, Abbas Keshavarz, deputy minister for crops of ministry of agriculture said, as reported by IRNA.
In the 2012/13 farming year, the country produced 9 to 9.1 million tons of wheat, of which 4.8 million tons had been purchased by the government, he added.
Production of other cereals also increased in the 2013-14 farming year. "So far, the country has produced 1.9 million tons of rice. It is expected that the rice output will register 5 to 6 percent growth upon the completion of harvest," Keshavarz said.
But barely production declined by 300,000 tons reaching 2.4 million tons in 2013/14. The negative growth of barely is blamed on the decline in precipitation and excessive cold in the farms particularly in the Khorasan Razavi province, which produces 26 percent of the total barely in the country, Keshavarz added.
The deputy minister underlined that FAO collects its required statistics through the ministry of agriculture and the Statistical Center of Iran. "So it can't produce independent statistics," he said, rejecting the FAO's claim that grain production reduced in Iran.
Iran is one of the “largest grain producers” in the world and its global ranking is yet to be announced based on this year’s output, Keshavarz noted.
FAO has been recently quoted by local media saying that Iran's grain production had fallen by one million tons reaching 19.3 million tons in the farming year which ended September 30, while the county had produced 20.3 million tons of grains in the previous farming year, according to official data.
The report suggested that rice output, the second main crop cultivated in the country, will reach 1.9 million tons registering 100,000 tons increase. Barely and maize production remained stable respectively at 3.2 million and 1.3 million tons. FAO says Iran ranks 12th among the largest wheat producers in the world.
According to FAO, global wheat production will increase by 0.2 percent reaching 7,18.5 million tons compared to last year.
