Iran’s 2006 rice harvest hit 3.5m tons
TEHRAN – According to figures released by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Iran’s paddy rice production in 2006 reached 3.5 million tons, the director of Iran’s Rice Association Jamil Shayeq said on Sunday.
“FAO report puts China on top of the world table of paddy production with 181.5 million tons,” he added, pointing to India, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Thailand and Vietnam as other major rice producers. Asia accounted for 576 million tons of the world total (635.5 million tons) in the said period. Basmati, special to the Indian subcontinent, was still the world’s most expensive variety of rice in 2006, being traded at 513 dollars a ton, showing 44 dollars increase compared to 2005 figures. A rice market monitor report by FAO in December 2006 had predicted larger rice output for Iran in 2007, forecasting the world trade in rice to hit 28.9 million tons in the same year.
Saffron farming pilot project in Afghanistan bears fruit
TEHRAN – A pilot saffron farming project has successfully ended in seven Afghan provinces, Afghanistan’s Bakhtar News Agency reported.
The joint venture between Afghanistan and France included the cultivation of 5,840 kilos of saffron corms in Kabul and six other provinces in a total area of 10,640 square meters. Soon after the 2001 war ended in Afghanistan, a large group of the country’s farmers started to cultivate saffron, which is regarded as a Persian delicacy and is the world’s most expensive spice. A few years later, Iranian saffron farmers started to worry about the consequences of the rapid growth of the Afghan saffron farming industry. They have since been complaining that Iran would soon lag behind the neighboring Afghanistan unless the government provides them with sufficient financial and technical support.
Lack of geotechnical engineering centers hinders structural safety: report
TEHRAN – A housing and construction research center has announced that a geotechnical engineering databank is required to be created to help organize decision-making and management when dealing with structural safety.
“There is a lot of unsystematized, fragmentary data on construction and housing subjects in the related organizations across the country,” the center’s report added, noting this could be put in order once the databank introduces a building code. That code, urged the report, should be immediately enforced by the government so that every new building project is based on new structural safety recommendations.
Iran ports’ capacity to hit 110m tons by March
TEHRAN – The total stevedoring capacity at the Iranian ports is projected to reach 100 million tons by the end of the current Iranian year, an official with the Ports and Shipping Organization said Sunday.
In the first nine months of the year (March 21-December 21, 2006), 82 million tons of oil and non-oil goods were loaded and unloaded at these ports, which corroborated 12% increase compared to the same period last year, the official said. Some 1.18 million TEU (twenty-foot equivalent unit) containers were stevedored at the same period to show 12.3% increase.
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MNA