Water productivity in Iran’s agriculture sector is well below global average.
According to the spokesperson of Iran’s Water Industry affiliated with the Energy Ministry, the rate stands at 4.1 kilograms of crop yields per one cubic meter of water consumption.
“Plans were for the figure to reach 6.1 kilograms per each cubic meter of water by the end of the Sixth Five-Year Development Plan [March 2022], but we failed to reach that goal,” Firouz Qasemzadeh was also quoted as saying by IRIB News.
Iran's development plans outline government strategies for different sectors in its budget planning for five years.
The official noted that the global average water productivity stands at 5.2 kg per cubic meter of water.
Water productivity is generally defined as crop yield per cubic meter of water consumption, including 'green' water (effective rainfall) for rain-fed areas and both 'green' water and 'blue' water (diverted from water systems) for irrigated areas.
Cropping Pattern
Qasemzadeh said one of the best measures the government has recently taken to improve water productivity is the implementation of cropping patterns.
The Agriculture Ministry started its cropping pattern project in September for the cultivation of essential crops, including wheat, barley, soybeans, cotton, colza and corn.
According to the official, the agriculture sector accounts for 90% of Iran’s water consumption.
Cropping pattern refers to the proportion of land under cultivation of different crops at different points of time. This indicates the time and arrangement of crops in a particular land area.
According to Deputy Agriculture Minister Mohammad Qorbani, the project is aimed at increasing the production of essential goods and decreasing the cultivation of water-intensive crops.
“We are planning to do this by restricting land under the cultivation of vegetables and levying export taxes for these products,” he added.
According to the Agriculture Ministry’s deputy for agronomical affairs, Alireza Mohajer, the main hurdle facing the implementation of cropping patter in Iran is the ongoing market dynamics.
“When farmers see that the potato market is much more profitable than that of wheat, they decide to cultivate potato, which requires more water to grow. However, the Agriculture Ministry cannot force farmers to stick to the cropping pattern program, so the only thing the government can do is offer incentives,” he said.
“Farmers usually prefer to cultivate vegetables instead of essential crops because they are much more expensive in the consumer market. This is while these products are way more water-intensive than most grains.”
Mohajer noted that another reason why farmers opt for vegetable cultivation is the export prices of these products.
Vegetables, he added, are more expensive than grains in the markets of neighboring countries, which makes exports of these goods more profitable.
The Agriculture Ministry’s cropping pattern project for the crop year 2022-23 has identified the provinces prioritized for the production of oilseeds and pulses, and the volume each province is estimated to yield.
As for oilseeds, plans are for Khuzestan Province in southern Iran to produce 161,000 tons, Fars 64,000 tons, West Azarbaijan 56,000 tons and Khorasan Razavi 35,000 tons, IRIB News reported.
Plans are for Lorestan Province to produce 135,000 tons of pulses, Kermanshar 128,000 tons, Fars 76,000 tons, Kurdestan 59,000 tons, East Azarbaijan 55,000 tons, Zanjan 50,000 tons, Khuzestan 43,000 tons and Markazi 42,000 tons.
Iran imports the lion’s share of its domestic demand for oilseeds and pulses mainly from Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, China, Australia, Canada and Ethiopia.
The Agriculture Ministry says it offers incentives and banking facilities to farmers who cooperate in the government’s cropping pattern project and will reduce their water fees.
“We have around 12 million hectares of farmland scattered across the country and plans are to cultivate 15 agricultural products based on cropping pattern on nearly 60% of them,” Mohajer was quoted as saying by IRNA.
The successful execution of the country’s cropping pattern cannot be carried out by the Agriculture Ministry alone. Farmers are the owners of land and many responsible bodies need to provide them with subsidized fertilizers, good seeds and cheap banking facilities, he added.
By extension, the ministries of industries, energy and economy, as well as the Central Bank of Iran and the Management and Planning Organization of Iran need to get involved in cultivation based on cropping patterns to guarantee its success.
Drought-Stricken
Experts have been warning for years against the cultivation of water-intensive crops, as Iran is a dry country with limited arable land, which needs to focus on using its limited resources of water and soil to produce essential goods.
In a report, Iran Chamber of Commerce, Industries, Mines and Agriculture has warned agricultural officials that drought is crippling the country's agricultural activities and hamper economic growth in this sector.
The ICCIMA report says precipitation levels have fallen drastically.
The Majlis Research Center has released a list of Iranian provinces in a critical state of water shortage: Isfahan, Hormozgan, Sistan-Baluchestan, Ardabil, Fars, Markazi and Khorasan Razavi.
"Drought has inflicted 670 trillion rials [$2 billion] in losses on Iran's agriculture sector since the beginning of the current crop year," Mohammad Mousavi, director general of the Agriculture Ministry's Crisis Management Department, said in June 2021.
Masoud Khansari, president of Tehran Chamber of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture, says Iran is likely to lose 70% of its agricultural lands in future.
"Experts have sounded the alarm about this grave danger but so far little attention has been paid to this challenge," he wrote for the Persian economic daily Donya-e-Eqtesad.
"The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations issued in its latest report a stark warning of multiple, looming food crises, driven by conflict, climate shocks, the fallout from the Covid-19 pandemic and massive public debt burdens - exacerbated by the ripple effects of the war in Ukraine, which has pushed food and fuel prices to accelerate in many nations across the globe. It also warned about the shortage of water resources in Iran, saying Iranian farmers use two to three times the global average of water used to cultivate corn, rice and wheat per hectare,” he added.
Khansari noted that experts recommend the government to employ 10-year water austerity measures rather than adopting a political stance to resolve this issue.
