Iran Red Meat Output at 99k Tons in Summer

EghtesadOnline: About 99,000 tons of red meat were supplied by Iranian slaughterhouses in the summer of the current fiscal year (June 22-Sept. 22), more than 12,000 tons of which pertained to Tehran Province.

News ID: ۷۸۴۴۱۴

22 December 2018

According to a report published by Tehran Chamber of Commerce, Industries, Mines and Agriculture citing data from the Statistical Center of Iran, lamb accounted for over 32,000 tons of the production.

Tehran had a 12.3% share of the country's lamb production.

Khorasan Razavi Province had the highest share with 8,700 tons (26.85%), according to Financial Tribune.

Goat meat production stood at 8,275 tons, of which Isfahan Province, with 1,895 tons, had the highest share of the output. Tehran had a 1.2% share in goat meat output.

Beef production stood at 56,000 tons in summer, of which Tehran was the top province with a 14.5% share.

Buffalo meat production was at 1,041 tons. Only nine provinces in the country had buffalo meat production, with Khuzestan Province grabbing a noticeable 49% share and Tehran having zero production.

Camel meat production amounted to 1,205 tons. Tehran had a 0.38% share. The highest production belonged to Sistan-Baluchestan Province with a share of 26%.

A total of 429,000 tons of red meat were produced in Iran’s officially-registered slaughterhouses in the past fiscal year (March 2017-18) to register a 4% decline compared with the year before, according to SCI.

Beef had the lion’s share in the country’s red meat output during the year with 223,000 tons (52%), followed by lamb with 162,000 tons (37.6%), goat meat with 34,000 tons (7.8%) and meat from other livestock with 11,000 tons (2.65%).

Former deputy agriculture minister, Hassan Rokni, told Financial Tribune earlier that red meat production in the country meets 90% of domestic demand and that the Iranian red meat market is worth 248.793 trillion rials ($2.4 billion).

Rokni noted that as of last year, close to 1.5 million livestock farmers were active in the country. The top 10 red meat production provinces in Iran are Khorasan Razavi, Fars, East Azarbaijan, Mazandaran, West Azarbaijan, Isfahan, Khuzestan, Tehran, Ardabil and Hamedan, he added.

Iran’s per capita red meat consumption stood at 11.47 kilograms per person last year (March 2016-17), reaching a total of 917,000 tons. This is while the country’s per capita red meat production is below 10.5 kilograms.

The global per capita consumption of meat (minus pork) is 11.5 kilograms per annum, similar to Iran’s.

Iranians tend to consume more chicken than red meat and the per capita chicken consumption in the country is 26 kilograms while the global average is at 15 kilograms.

With 23 million head of livestock, Iranian nomads produce 200,000 tons of red meat and 350,000 tons of dairy products annually," Karamali Qandali, the head of Nomadic Affairs Organization, said.

"Nomadic communities also produce 9.5 million head of livestock per year."