Iran’s Deputy Minister of Agriculture Ahmad Khani Norouzi said on Sunday that the county’s rice imports have decreased by 42% this year.
Noting that Iran has been importing an average 1.4 million metric tons (mt) of the crop over the past ten years, the official said that Iran’s rice imports rose to as much as 1.8 million mt in the past calendar year.
He noted that the rise in Iran’s last year rice imports was largely as a result of an increase in the prices of the domestically-grown rice, and the need for more rice reserves due to concerns about the consequences of the Ukraine war and increasing demand for foreign rice in the Iranian market.
He put the country’s annual rice output at 2.2 million mt.