“The harvest season is not yet over but this year’s purchased amount has already exceeded the whole of last year’s,” said Momen Niyafar, an official with the Government Trading Corporation of Iran–a government-owned company specialized in the purchase, import and distribution of essential foodstuff.
GTC is the lever for enforcing market controls and in charge of maintaining a supply of wheat, rice, cooking oil and meat for the country’s strategic reserve of essential goods.
Considered a staple in Iran, wheat is purchased every crop year by the government to build up its reserves and supply the market over time, Financial Tribune reported.
“The wheat bought from local farmers up until now is worth around 122 trillion rials ($1.44 billion). Estimates are that purchases will reach 9.5 million tons this year,” Niyafar was also quoted as saying by Mehr News Agency.
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 last, 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.
The self-sufficiency has endured to date.