With the allocation of $489,000, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations’ Technical Cooperation Division, under the auspices of the Ministry of Agriculture, has developed and started implementing a project titled “Improving Agricultural Monitoring Systems Through Satellite Imagery for Iran” in Mazandaran, Zanjan and Kerman provinces.
The project is aimed at assisting the country in the monitoring and analysis of agricultural production to achieve sustainable agricultural development.
“Our project will identify sustainable methods for field data collection to produce improved, harmonized and consolidated statistics, based on data collected by provincial agriculture offices,” said Esther Kuisch Laroche, the FAO representative ad interim to Iran, at the workshop of the project hosted by the ministry last Wednesday, FAO's news portal reported.
She added that the project will benefit from the availability of multi-temporal satellite images for testing and monitoring a range of crops for the selected provinces.
According to a press release published by the FAO representative in the Islamic Republic of Iran, these satellite images will enable Iran’s Ministry of Agriculture and other government entities to collect near real-time crop field information and use it for monitoring agro production.
The improved monitoring system will support the development of the Agricultural Market System, which will enhance food market transparency and encourage coordination of policy action in response to market uncertainty.
FAO is working closely with the government of Iran in providing technical assistance in the areas of capacity building, policy and strategy development, crop production, livestock and animal health, fisheries and forest management, and emergency and rehabilitation programs.
FAO’s representative in Iran started a Technical Cooperation Program called “Capacity Building for Increasing Sustainable Oilseed Production Focused on Soybean Value” in a workshop held in Tehran in June, which will be implemented during 2017-19.
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.
The first joint program is being conducted in the city of Safiabad in the southern Khuzestan Province’s Dezful County.
“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, the head of Safiabad Research, Agricultural Education and Natural Resources Center, told IRNA.
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.
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