According to the official, about 1.2 million tons of wheat have been purchased from farmers by the government since the beginning of the wheat harvest season about two months, Mehr News Agency reported.
“This year’s wheat purchases from local farmers at guaranteed prices began on March 26 in the southeastern Sistan-Baluchestan Province,” said Yazdan Seif, a deputy agriculture minister, who also doubles as the head of Government Trading Corporation of Iran.
The Iranian government, he added, will purchase between 10.2 million and 10.5 million tons of wheat from local farmers this year, Financial Tribune reported.
Iran has been self-sufficient in wheat production for two years now and only imports the crop for reexportation after it is processed.
More than 8.87 million tons of wheat worth 116 trillion rials ($2.83 billion) were purchased from Iranian farmers by the government last year.
A record high of 14 million tons of wheat were domestically produced the year before, more than 11.76 million tons of which worth over $4 billion were purchased by the government from local farmers at guaranteed prices. This helped Iran achieve self-sufficiency in wheat production for the first time after about a decade.