Iran, FAO to Kick-Start Joint Soybean Program

Iran and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations will carry out their first joint program on soybean cultivation in the city of Safiabad in the southern Khuzestan Province’s Dezful County this summer, the head of Safiabad Research, Agricultural Education and Natural Resources Center said.

“The program is aimed at exchanging germ plasm between Iran and FAO, protective cultivation of soybeans in order to attain sustainable farming and arriving at self-sufficiency in the production of the oilseed,” Rahim Eslamizadeh was also quoted as saying by IRNA.

FAO’s representative in Iran began a Technical Cooperation Program called “Capacity Building for Increasing Sustainable Oilseed Production Focused on Soybean Value” in a workshop held in Tehran earlier this month, which will be implemented over two years (2017-19), FAO’s office in Iran announced in a press release last week.

The main objectives pursued by the project are building capacity in the public and private sectors for using innovative methods in producing sustainable crops and applying these methods to the oilseed value chain, in addition to integrating the latest technologies into cereal-based production systems.

During the workshop, Alireza Mohajer, advisor to the agriculture minister and director of National Oilseed Project, said 95% of domestic demand (1.5 million tons) for vegetable oils are met through imports.

“The government is planning to meet 70% of domestic demand from local production,” he said.

Highlighting the importance of this project for food security in Iran, Fabio Grita, FAO’s representative in Iran said the objective is to reduce the dependency on foreign countries in this respect by producing part of the need for oilseeds in Iran.

“The project will be bringing here experts from FAO and different countries, and establish cooperation with international organizations specialized in oilseed production,” he said.