Iran hints at return to wheat self-sufficiency

A senior agriculture ministry official suggested in comments published on Saturday that Iran could produce enough wheat to meet domestic demand in the 2009-10 year after imports jumped last year due to a drought. The semi-official Mehr News Agency quoted Deputy Agriculture Minister Mohammad-Reza Jansouz as saying that Iran's wheat production was forecast at 12.5-13.5 million tonnes during the Iranian year that ends in March 2010.
He did not give a comparison but said self-sufficiency in Iran was 10.5-11 million tonnes, suggesting this represented total needs of the grain. The government would purchase up to 10.5 million tonnes from farmers this year, he said. Iranian wheat imports soared last year due to dry weather that hit domestic production, but officials have voiced growing optimism about this year's harvest after the spring months saw plenty of rain.
Mehr on Saturday also quoted the head of parliament's agriculture committee, Abbas Rajai, as saying he was hopeful Iran's wheat purchases abroad would amount to the "strategic level" of 1 million tonnes in 2009-10. This would be considerably lower than the previous year. An Iranian business daily earlier this year said Iran imported 5.9 million tonnes of wheat in the 2008-09 year, of which about 15 percent came from its old foe the United States.
As late as last month, an Iranian government body approved plans to import another 2.18 million tonnes of wheat in the 2009-10 year in addition 5 million previously approved, making clear officials were preparing for another bad year. Iran had said it became self-sufficient in wheat in 2004 but cold winter weather in 2007-08 followed by drought hit agricultural production in the country of 70 million people and the world's fifth-largest oil exporter.
It has said it prefers to buy wheat from Central Asian countries, Australia and Argentina. But one official said in November it was importing wheat from the United States via intermediaries, in the first official admission that such an indirect trade was taking place.