Tehran Times – Iran’s Agriculture Ministry announced that 2,616 development and production projects worth 29.11 trillion rials (about $693 million) will be inaugurated across the country on the occasion of the Government Week (August 24-30).

Inaugurating these projects is set to create more than 94,000 job opportunities across the country, IRIB reported.

As reported, Khorasan Razavi with 280 projects, Isfahan with 260 projects and West Azarbaijan with 220 projects were the top three provinces in terms of the number of allocated projects.

The projects covered a variety of areas including water and soil subdivisions, livestock and poultry as well as gardening and crop production projects.

According to the ministry’s report, nearly 19,000 projects have been inaugurated in various areas of the country’s agricultural sector since August 2017 up to date.

Last week, the Agriculture Ministry published a report on development of the country’s agricultural sectors in the past six years.

Based on the released data, Iran’s total agriculture production in various sectors including horticulture, livestock, poultry and aquaculture reached 122 million tons in the past Iranian calendar year (ended on March 20, 2019), a 3.3 percent rise compared to the figure for March 2013.

As reported by IRNA, the country’s total agricultural production stood at 97 million tons in the Iranian calendar year of 1392 (started in March 2013).

According to Deputy Agriculture Minister Abbas Keshavarz, the country's self-sufficiency rate in wheat production has increased from 65 percent in the Iranian calendar year of 1392 (March 2013-March 2014) to 105 percent in the past year.

In the past forty years, since the Islamic Revolution, Iran has witnessed a remarkable improvement in various sectors and the agriculture industry has been one of the areas in which the country has undergone huge development.

Revolutionizing the agriculture industry through implementing billions of dollars’ worth of development, research and educational projects across the country has been one of the main reasons for the significant improvements in this sector in recent years.

The recent heavy rainfalls across the country have also created a good condition for the country’s agricultural sectors to witness a rise in production.

Earlier in June, Iranian Agriculture Minister Mahmoud Hojjati said the country is expected to experience a significant increase in agricultural production due to sufficient rainfalls this year (March 2019-March 2020).