Head of Institution for Research on Citrus Fruits affiliated to the Ministry of Agricultural Jihad, Sirous Aqajan-zadeh said that northern province of Mazandaran stood first among Iran’s provinces with 37% and 39% cultivated fields and production, respectively, while Iran ranked tenth in the world as “we could catch a production of 16,800 kg per hectare.”
With this bumper harvest, Iran jumped to the world’s seventh and eighth place in terms of production and cultivated fields, respectively, he said stressing that “We must hard slog to move up the world rankings.”
The official further put the per capita consumption of orange at 21 kg and tangerine at 5.5 kg, adding that with such capability of production, there is no need to import citrus fruits.
AF/IS
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MNA