Iran has bought a record 11.42 million tonnes of wheat from domestic producers, surpassing a self-sufficiency target, the official news agency IRNA reported on Tuesday.
Iranian officials had estimated Iran's domestic wheat consumption at between 10.5-to-11 million tonnes. The government purchased 10.9 million tonnes of wheat from domestic producers last year. "We have broken the record of domestic wheat purchases by buying 11.42 million tonnes of wheat from the farmers," IRNA quoted Mohabbat Ali Naderi Shahab, deputy agriculture minister for farming affairs, as saying.
"The production of wheat has risen by 500,000 tonnes compared to the year 2004," he added. Iran - previously a big importer of wheat from Canada, Australia and Argentina - said it was self sufficient in 2004 although it continued to import. The head of Iran's Governmental Trading Corporation (GTC) Mohammad Sadeq Mofatteh announced in April that Iran did not need to import wheat in the year to March 2007 because local production would meet demand.
Despite meeting a self-sufficiency target, the GTC imported 1.2 million tonnes of wheat in the past year to boost Iran's strategic reserves. A final shipment arrived in May, officials have said.
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