Head of the Iranian Flour Producers Association: We have never been so dependent on grain imports

Mohammad Reza Mortazavi, head of the Iranian Flour Producers Association, says that Iran has never been so dependent on grain imports.

In an interview with the Entebakh news site on Monday, May 2, Mohammad Reza Mortazavi predicted that this year "we should have 20 million tons of grain imports" and that the price of each kilogram of pasta would reach 32,000 to 36,000 tomans.

The head of the Aradsazan Association continued, referring to the existence of a multi-year period of self-sufficiency in wheat, and added that it seems that we will see an import of about 6 to 7 million tons of wheat to Iran this year.

In this interview, Mortazavi implicitly denied the impact of the Ukrainian war on the increase in wheat prices, saying, "In general, the world price of wheat has increased, but the government had been subsidizing industrial wheat for several years. Now, when the prices were brought closer to the world price, wheat purchases from farmers were adjusted, and subsidies were cut, naturally the price of wheat has reached 12,000 tomans."

The guaranteed price for purchasing wheat from domestic farmers last year was 9,500 Tomans, while since Russia's invasion of Ukraine on March 25, global wheat prices have increased by about 60 percent and reached about $550 per ton, which is equivalent to about 15,000 Tomans per kilo.

Following the repeated price increases in Iran this year, especially the soaring sales prices of food items such as rice and potatoes, criticism of Ebrahim Raisi's government has increased. This is despite the fact that the head of the 13th government and his economic team have repeatedly promised to "change the status quo for the benefit of the people," "reduce inflation to single digits," and "eliminate absolute poverty."

Source: Voice of America