Early Frost Inflicts Heavy Losses on Iranian Farmers

Early frost has cost orange, kiwi, and livestock and poultry farmers in Mazandaran Province an estimated 6 trillion rials, 1 trillion rials and 2 trillion rials (over $157.5 million, $26.3 million and $39.5 million at market exchange rates) respectively, says the head of the northern Iranian province’s Agricultural Jihad Organization.

“Between 250,000 and 300,000 tons of oranges and about 90,000 tons of kiwis were lost,” Delavar Heydarpour was quoted as saying by IRNA.

Prior to the early and sudden drop in temperature over the past few days, a total of 2.7 million tons of citrus fruit were expected to be produced in Mazandaran.

More than 110,000 hectares of land go under the cultivation of citrus fruit in Mazandaran, which meet nearly 50% of the domestic demand.

“About 80,000 hectares of farms were affected by the frost,” Heydarpour said, noting that only 6,000 to 7,000 hectares or around 8% of these farms were insured.

Elyas Larijani, the head of Mazandaran Flower and Plant Producers Union, said over the past few days, 120 hectares of the province’s roofed and unroofed greenhouses incurred more than $5.2 million in damages.

Moreover, the extreme cold inflicted losses worth more than $13 million on Khorasan Razavi’s wheat, barley, colza and beetroot farms, according to Mojtaba Mazrouei, the head of Agricultural Jihad Organization of the northeastern province.

Hashem Naqibi, an official with the organization, said some 25,000 hectares of saffron farms in the province have been ruined and so far 30% to 40% of the crop, amounting to at least 35 tons of saffron worth $46 million, have been lost.

With over 75,000 hectares of land under saffron cultivation, Khorasan Razavi is Iran’s production hub for saffron.

Saffron farms in South Khorasan Province were damaged as well and between 10% and 30% of the crops perished in the cold, Mehr News Agency quoted Abolhassan Mirjalali of the province’s governorate as saying.