Iran has produced about 1.2 million tons of different types of dates so far in the current fiscal year (started March 20), the chairman of the National Association of Iranian Dates said.
The date production so far this year amounts to last year’s production figures, Mohsen Rashid Farrokhi said.
According to Zahra Jalili-Moqaddam, an Agriculture Ministry official, Iran is the world’s second biggest producer of dates with an annual production of around 1.2 million tons that accounts for 10% of the global output.
Date is mainly produced in six Iranian provinces, namely Kerman, Sistan-Baluchestan, Khuzestan, Hormozgan, Bushehr and Fars. This year, production from Kerman, Sistan-Baluchestan and Khuzestan accounted for 800,000 tons of the total output (70%).
The map shows locations of the six main provinces that produce dates in Iran
Egypt, Iran and Saudi Arabia are the world's biggest producers of dates with an average annual production of 1.4 million tons, 1.2 million tons and 1.1 million tons respectively.
Egypt has the biggest production and Algeria has the biggest area of land under date cultivation.
Yet, Iran is the biggest exporter of the crop in the world, according to Rashid Farrokhi.
“Exports have been hampered by the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic. Yet, we expect to export between 15% and 20% of our overall output by the end of the current Iranian year [March 20, 2021],” Rashid Farrokhi was also quoted as saying by Young Journalists Club.
According to the Islamic Republic of Iran Customs Administration, 238,152 tons of dates worth $211.64 million were exported from Iran to 85 countries in the last Iranian year (March 2019-20).