Iran’s pistachio exports reached $915 million last year which accounts for a half of the country’s horticultural products, a senior official with the Ministry of Agriculture said on Saturday.
Daryoush Salempour, the caretaker of the dried fruits bureau of Agriculture Ministry, put Iran’s last year pistachio exports at 135,000 tons.
He also said that Iran has produced nearly 225,000 tons of pistachio this year.
With some 534,000 hectares of pistachio gardens and an annual production of over 300,000 tons of the product, Iran has the world top spot in area under cultivation and the second spot in production, the official said.
He said that pistachio is a strategic product as it accounts for a major part of the country’s non-oil exports.
Noting that the area of pistachio gardens are equal to 20% of the country’s total area of gardens, he said that the product is mainly produced in provinces of Kerman, Razavi Khorasan, Yazd, Fars, South Khorasan, Semnan, Markazi, Qom, Sistan-Baluchestan, Tehran, and Isfahan.