Iran exports 120,000 tons of greenhouse products to Persian
Gulf nations, Eurasia, Russia

120,000 tons of greenhouse products were exported from
Hormozgan province, in the south of Iran, during the past Iranian calendar year
1401 (ended on March 20), a provincial official announced.

Abbas Moayedi, the head of the province’s Agriculture
Department, named bell peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers, and eggplants as the
exported products.

These products were mostly exported to Persian Gulf
countries, Eurasia, Russia and Central Asia, he stated, Tehran Times reported.

In early July, the director of the Agriculture Ministry's
Greenhouse Development Program announced that 23,000 hectares of lands are
under greenhouse cultivation throughout the country.

Mehdi Lotfi-Zadeh also said that 150,000 hectares of new
greenhouses are planned to be set up in the country during a five-year program
based on the Seventh National Development Plan.

As stated by the deputy agriculture minister, the
development of greenhouse cultivation is a major policy of the Agriculture
Ministry.

In this regard, several projects have been defined and
introduced to the banks, and as soon as the notification is made, the projects
will receive facilities and their implementation will begin, the official
added.

In recent years, the water crisis has caused serious
challenges in Iran’s agriculture sector.

To solve this problem, several solutions, including the
implementation of pressurized irrigation projects and greenhouse cultivation,
have been emphasized by experts and officials in this sector.

Iranian Agriculture Ministry’s Greenhouse Development
Program is one of the priority projects of this ministry which aims at
increasing productivity, efficiency, and water consumption management in the
agriculture sector.

The program was approved in the Iranian calendar year 1395
(which ended on March 20, 2017) under the framework of the National Resilient
Economy Plan.

The development of the country’s agricultural parks and
greenhouses not only is going to create new job opportunities but also
increases the country’s non-oil exports and helps preserve the environment and
the national water and soil resources.

Cultivation in the controlled space of the greenhouse will
have an average of 10 times higher yield per unit area than outdoor cultivation
due to suitable environmental conditions.