Iran has signed an agreement with Brazil to barter its fertilizer for livestock feed from the South American country.
The deal was signed on Saturday between Iranian agriculture minister Javad Sadati Nejad and his Brazilian counterpart Tereza Cristina Corrêa da Costa Dias in a meeting in Tehran.
The agreement allows Iran to export up to 400,000 metric tons (mt) of urea fertilizer to Brazil per year in return for receiving shipments of animal feed from the country.
Sadati Nejad said Iran aims to increase urea exports to Brazil to around 2 million mt per year, adding that shipments are currently at around 0.6 million mt.
He said Brazilian authorities had also agreed to work with Iran on a preferential trade mechanism that could boost exchanges between the two countries.
The minister insisted Iran should earn more from exports of certain farming products to Brazil, including from pistachio, saffron and nuts.
“Although we are Brazil’s third trade partner in the Middle East, this trade is not balanced … We should work to bring Iranian farming products on the Brazilian table,” said Sadati Nejad.
Reports in the local media said that Brazilian agriculture minister Dias had welcomed the idea of increased Iranian exports of farming products to Brazil.
Dias promised she would work on a proposal to import apple and nuts from Iran upon her return to Brazil.
Other reports suggested Iran and Brazil had agreed to exchange more trade and business delegations between each other in the future months and to set up trade offices in an effort to boost trade relations.
Speaking during a seminar in Tehran late in January on exploring the chances for trade between Iran and Brazil, Iran Chamber chief Gholam Hossein Shafei said that Iran had some $1.15 billion of direct imports from Brazil in 2020 while its exports to the Latin American country stood as few as $116 million.
Shafei noted that corn, soybean, edible oils, sugar, meat and coffee were Iran’s main import items from Brazil while mining and industrial sectors were paid less attention.