“Some 98,000 hectares of cotton plantations have so far gone under cultivation this year and the figure is expected to increase by close to 300 hectares since the planting season is continuing in the warmer provinces,” Hezarjaribi was quoted as saying by IRNA.
The official noted that Khorasan Razavi with 23,000 hectares tops the list of provinces with the biggest area of land under cotton cultivation.
In recent years, Golestan in the north, North and South Khorasan in the northeast, Fars in the southwest and Ardebil in northwest Iran have emerged as the main provinces in cotton production.
The Agriculture Ministry plans to achieve self-sufficiency in cotton production by 2025.
Hossein Kaviyani, the CEO of Iran Cotton Fund, has told Young Journalists Club that a total of 97,000 tons of cotton were imported during the last Iranian year (March 2019-20).
Last June, the official said Iran is able to meet 50% of its domestic need for cotton, which stands at 120,000 tons per annum.
“The rest is imported and that’s not just in the form of cotton. We also import threads and textiles. We import from Uzbekistan, which has high-quality cotton, as well as India and China,” he told Mizan Online.
Kaviyani had predicted that land under cotton cultivation would increase by around 25% to stand at more than 100,000 hectares this year.