The Government Trading Corporation of Iran (GTC) said on Wednesday that wheat purchases from Iranian farmers had reached 5.049 million mt until July 9, adding that purchases had continued even at the height of the 12-day Israeli aggression against the country last month, according to Press TV report.
The province of Khuzestan in southwest Iran has been responsible for over 1.4 million mt of supplies, followed by Golestan in the northeast at 0.59 million mt and Fars in the south at just over 0.5 million mt, said the GTC.
The company did not provide comparative figures but said that wheat supplies in several western provinces had increased despite unfavorable climate conditions.
It said purchases had reached nearly 1,040 trillion rials (nearly $1.2 billion) in value terms, adding that the government had paid more than 450 trillion rials to the farmers until earlier this week.
Iran buys wheat from farmers under a guaranteed purchase program, which has set a fixed price of 205,000 rials ($0.25) per kilogram this harvesting season.
The country’s agriculture ministry (MAJ) said in May that wheat purchases had increased by more than 10% compared to the last harvesting season.
However, it has forecasted that Iran's wheat production could fall to 12 million mt this year from a bumper crop of more than 16 million mt reported last year.
Estimates suggest the GTC would buy up to 9 million mt of the domestic wheat supply until September, when harvest concludes, meaning the country would need to import up to 6 million mt of the grain to be able to respond to domestic demand in the calendar year to late March
