About 3.4 million tons of apples were produced in the current crop year, indicating a 15% growth compared to last year, says Mojtaba Shadlou, the head of Farmers Union. Shadlou noted that half of the yield needs to be exported to balance the domestic market, “otherwise farmers will incur losses due to the ensuing reduction in prices”. He has been quoted by IRNA as saying that the main challenge facing domestic apple production is excessive imports of the fruit–some of which are smuggled. There are currently 334,000 hectares of apple orchards across the country with an average annual yield of 17 tons per hectare, according to the Persian daily Forsat-e Emrooz.
