A health ministry official said some 2,000 hectares of farms are irrigated by wastewater across the country, most of which are in the suburbs of the capital Tehran. The head of environment and labor health center in the ministry, Kazem Naddafi, said the government’s punitive policies have decreased the 8,000 hectares of wastewater-irrigated farms in 2010 to the current figure. A member of Tehran City Council has also confirmed the contamination of some vegetable farms in the south of the city. Fatemeh Alia told Mehr news agency that some of the crops are irrigated by a mixture of clean water and wastewater near Tehran. Untreated wastewater irrigation has numerous negative impacts on crops and as a result threatens public health.
