Nuts and dried fruit exports reached 96,000 tons worth $212 million in the first two months of the current fiscal year (March 21-May 21), registering a 25% and 36% in weight and value respectively.
Pistachio exports stood at 18,000 tons worth $122 million, accounting for 57% of the total exports, registering a 50% and 43% growth in weight and value respectively year-on-year.
Iran’s annual domestic demand for pistachio amounts to between 35,000 and 45,000 tons, accounting for 20% of the total output.
On average, Iran exports 80% of its total pistachio yields.
Iran and the US are the world’s biggest producers of pistachio. The US output has overtaken Iran’s in recent years though the quality of the Iranian crop is widely said to be superior to that of the US.
The export of dates hit 48,000 worth $42 million, registering a 12% and 13% growth in weight and value YOY respectively.
Muslim countries are the main customers of Iranian dates: Persian Gulf littoral states, Southeast Asian countries, including Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia. Among other importers of Iranian dates are the Commonwealth of Independent States and Russia as well as European countries such as Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands.
Nevertheless, India is the main export destination of Iran’s dates, according to Meqdad Takallouzadeh, secretary of the National Association of Iranian Dates.
Noting that consumption of dates during the holy month of Ramadan accounts for 50% of annual consumption of dates, Takallouzadeh said domestic demand for dates is estimated to stand at 700,000 tons while per capita date consumption in Iran is around 7-8 kilograms per year.
Zahra Jalili Moqaddam, an Agriculture Ministry official, said Iran is the world’s second biggest producer of dates with an annual production of 1.2 million tons that account for 10% of the global output.
Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Pakistan, Algeria, Iraq, Sudan, Oman and Libya are the top 10 producers of dates in the world. Egypt has the biggest production and Algeria has the biggest area of land under date cultivation.
China, the UAE, India, Turkey, Iraq, Pakistan, Russia, Kazakhstan, Vietnam and Afghanistan were the main export destinations during the period under review.
According to Darab Hassani, an official with Agriculture Ministry, Iran has around 308,000 hectares of vineyards (289,000 hectares of which are productive) with an annual output of 3 million tons of grapes, out of which an average of 200,000 tons of raisins are produced, ILNA reported.
The main grape producing provinces in Iran are Fars, Qazvin, Hamedan, Khorasan Razavi, East Azarbaijan, West Azarbaijan, Zanjan and Markazi in the descending order.
Raisins exports stood at 27,000 tons worth $35 million while domestic raisins consumption is 40,000 tons per year.
According to Abbas Banazadeh, an agriculture expert, Iran is the world's third biggest producer of raisins after the US and Turkey, and the eighth biggest producer of grapes.
Iran’s biggest export destination for grapes and raisins is Russia. Other main customers are member countries of the European Union, Iraq, Afghanistan and the Persian Gulf littoral countries.
According to Younes Jaeleh, the head of Tabriz Chamber of Commerce, Iran produces 286,000 tons of grapes annually with East Azarbaijan Province having a 68,700-ton share.