The head of the Agriculture and Food Industry Commission of the Iran Cooperative Chamber said: Iran's agriculture has the capacity to produce food for 500 million people.

According to Tasnim news agency, Arslan Ghasemi, head of the Agriculture and Food Industry Commission of the Iran Cooperative Chamber, discussed the growth and self-sufficiency of agricultural production after the Islamic Revolution of Iran in the program of the Economic Magazine on Radio Ekhtaz.

Question: How do you evaluate the state of transformation and packaging industries and start-up industries in the agricultural sector in these 44 years, and what future do you predict for transformation, packaging and knowledge-based industries in the field of agriculture?
Ghasemi: Before I answer your question, I would like to point out two or three points, and that is that according to the statistics that have been published, in 1355, the production of agricultural products and food industry was about 25 to 26 million. Today, according to the statistics that have been published, we produce more than 120 million tons of agricultural products in the country, and these good products are mainly due to the productivity in the agricultural sector and the use of technologies that we have achieved in agriculture. Just as you mentioned, we still have a lot of neglected and empty capacities, and also the productivity in the agricultural sector has not reached the desired level that is the concern of technical experts, and we still have work to do, and we hope to reach this desired point, God willing. Regarding the discussion of transformation industries that you mentioned, many of your listeners may remember the first days of the revolution and the first decade of the revolution, we were importers of many agricultural products and basic goods, and the cheeses that were known as Danish cheese are now produced by ourselves. and convert  We became one of the cheese exporters in the region and the world. We used to import chicken from European countries and even though the population of the country was around 35, 36 million people at that time, it is true that now we only occasionally import chicken to regulate the market. Conversion industries are not desirable, but they have grown very well. Before the revolution, we had maybe one or two food industry brands. Now, you can see that we have different brands that have a continuous and permanent presence in the world markets, despite the fact that we are facing a cruel embargo under sanctions. Before the revolution, we had about 22, 23 million. The dollar was only the export of our agricultural products and food industry. Last year, we exported more than 6 billion dollars of agricultural products and food industry to more than 90 countries in the world. In about 90 countries of the world, the export of our agricultural products and food industries were and are under the same conditions, while before the revolution, there were no such conditions in the country, and only in those conditions, we had 25 million dollars in exports - according to the latest published statistics. Well, this all shows that we have the capacity to talk about processing industries, because the raw product is usually not exported, very little of our raw products are exported, we export most of the processed products, now this processing may be a simple packaging or No, let's create complete added value in this product.

Question: In the Lebanese field, you said that this happened, but the capacity is very high.
Ghasemi: Yes, the country has a lot of potential in this region, despite the fact that we should always keep in mind that even though we are located in an arid and semi-arid region and we were facing drought for most of the years in this decade, the fact that we were able to produce from 25 million tons to 125 million tons, despite all these conditions, it is due to the fact that we introduced knowledge, reduced waste, and transformation industries entered this story, that is, if our transformation industries were not included in various fields of agriculture and We couldn't use them, well, we practically didn't have the possibility of this production, because now production doesn't make sense, production means for the market and if we don't have the market.
I would like to add one point. In the 60s and 70s and also before the victory of the revolution, one of the problems we had in the discussion of agricultural products and in fact the food industry was the issue of packaging, that is, one of our major challenges was packaging, now the production system and Our industries are equipped with the latest packaging technology, which means that we are not behind in packaging in the world, maybe we are even ahead in some things, but anyway, we must go towards overcoming these cruel sanctions and be able to have a simple and smooth business. In the current situation, Iran's products cover the country's population of 85, 86 million, it also covers the neighboring countries, many of our neighboring countries do not have the possibility of agriculture at all and are dependent on our products, which means that at the present time Let's count our farmers and manufacturers and artisans, nearly 300 million people are now producing, and still, as you rightly pointed out, we still have a lot of product capacity that we need to use, we have had an extraordinary growth in fisheries, new industries. We have mentioned that the cultivation of shrimp in the country and the use of wet farming farms that exist in the 4 southern provinces of the country was one of the activities that started in the 73rd and 74th decades of the construction government, and now it is actually one of the important producers of shrimp in the region and actually one of We are one of the exporters of technical and engineering services of this industry in the region, or fish farming in cages is one of the activities that was formed after the victory of the Islamic Revolution and is expanding, the production of 1.1 million tons of fishery products can be compared with the production of less than 40, 50 1,000 tons in the discussion of breeding in sea fishing in the same years, we had about 250, 300,000 tons, but in the discussion of breeding, it was an activity that we achieved after the victory of the Islamic Revolution.

Question: But again we look and compare, much better things could have been done to benefit from what we had in the fisheries sector in the discussion of horticulture, fisheries and animal husbandry. A group knows the blind spot of this issue in the fact that if we had directed the capital to agricultural sectors such as fisheries, animal husbandry, the transformation industries you mentioned, instead of in a series of industries that may not have a very high added value for us, we would have been able to better the capacities. to use and have a better benefit, let's hear His Excellency's opinion about this; Can we say that the problem is capital or not?
Ghasemi: Unfortunately, in the agricultural sector, the most important challenge we have now is actually the negative growth of investment. Your statement is correct that one of the most important damages we are suffering in the agricultural sector is investment, and unfortunately, this lack of sufficient investment is partly caused by this. It is a matter that we have paid too much attention to industries that are not productive, and I believe that investments in industries have gone in a direction that wastes our resources in the industry sector more than it wants to be productive. The agricultural sector is another problem. and the other problem it has is only the economic sector, which is actually the sector of the people's economy, in the agricultural sector, more than 97, 98% of the activities are carried out by the cooperative sector and the private sector, and government companies are less involved in this field.

Question: In production?
Ghasemi: in production and export in processing and packaging industries.

Question: Because sometimes it plays a bigger role in business.
Ghasemi: In terms of imports, yes, in these years, due to the presence of rent in the government's preferred currency, its role was a bit more prominent, but in your production, please note that it is actually all in the hands of the public sector, well, this is a very good thing and also from Investing is a bad thing, why? Because many of our industries, which are state-owned and state-owned, direct capital in that direction with the pressures they have and the lobbies they have, unfortunately, we have to find a solution for this.
As you have emphasized many times, we have a lot of neglected capacities in the agricultural and food industries, despite the fact that the country is located in a dry and semi-arid region, we still have enough capacity to produce for about 500 to 600 million people. By increasing productivity and preserving our water and soil resources, which means that we don't actually waste our funds and make optimal use of those funds, it is possible that many in the northern region of the country did not have kiwis at all before the revolution. Now, we are the second and third largest producers of kiwis in the world. We are, well, all this has proceeded with the premise that investment in this sector has been very low, and if you consider, we should support the investment in the agricultural sector and support the agricultural sector more from this angle, certainly according to the statistics and We can obtain figures and productions that may have been operational for many on paper.

Question: Please explain in the knowledge-based field.
Ghasemi: In the last few years, the type of irrigation systems under pressure has actually changed from drip irrigation to subsurface drip irrigation in some provinces due to the arrival of knowledge in this field. We use 50% of irrigation to raise it, and we still have problems getting knowledge into the agricultural sector, even though according to higher education statistics, we have maybe more than 60,000 to 70,000 unemployed agricultural graduates, well, that is, from As we say, we are benefiting people who are like this in the country and we should use them and give them directions to enter the field of knowledge-oriented, knowledge-based productions and also to enter spaces where we can increase productivity with the presence of knowledge, especially in the field of water and soil productivity. which are actually the main basis of agriculture, we need to achieve it, another point is that, since we are talking about the achievements of the agricultural sector, today more than 80% of the country's required production in the field of food security in the country is provided by farmers and Atgaran food industry is being produced and we are one of the countries that did not change our food security with anything, despite all these problems and challenges that you mentioned, lack of investment, lack of knowledge in the agricultural sector, etc., but despite all these qualities, we Now our food security is under the embargo conditions in which we are living and we hope that these oppressive conditions will be removed soon. We will, God willing, overcome the issue of food security and move towards food authority to be one of the most powerful countries in the field of food authority in the international arena.