Is right with farmers or the government?

The wheat guarantee has been around for a while and the
purchase price of this strategic product has been set at 1,700 T this year,
while at the same time as the start of the purchase by government agencies,
dealers were found on farms and wheat was purchased at a price above the
government’s guaranteed rate.

Indeed, this year is the fourth consecutive year when the
government does not take into account the real rate of inflation in
communicating the price of wheat, and this discrepancy in the price of wheat
purchases with the inflation rate means a reduction in farmers’ economic power.
However, the officials of the region’s grain and trade services believe that
the sale of wheat to dealers is rumored, and in field research they have not been
able to find any self buyers among wheat farmers in Zanjan province.

In the current year, however, farmers were forced to pay
more for cultivating inputs. Meanwhile, the current cost of their lives , as in
all other strata of the community, has grown dramatically, and it should be
taken into account that, if many farmers still sell their products to
government centers, it does not mean the inability to sell the product at
higher rates.

Technical director and business vice president of grain and
trading services of Zanjan Region 14th in a conversation with ISNA, said:
“A lot of studies have been done on this subject, but it seems that the
news of the pre-sale of wheat in the fields of Zanjan province is more
rumored.” And we have not yet succeeded in seeing a self buyer.

Sattar Rahmani continues: “Of course, in order to
analyze such a topic, it is better to focus more precisely on the matter; in
fact, the purpose of guaranteeing the purchase is preventing the drop of a
product value at the market and, consequently, encouraging more production and
support of the producers of that product or commodity; in other words, there is
no compulsion for the producer to sell his product at a guaranteed purchase
price to the government and is free to do so.

He adds: Wheat is of course a strategic and essential
commodity and its export is prohibited in any way, but if a factory or dealer
wants to buy or sell a region’s product at a price above the guaranteed rate,
it does not do any illegal work and the farmer is free to sell his product at a
price that he thinks fit.

Rahmani states: In such a situation, farmers’ cooperation
with shopping centers is a very high significant matter. For example, in
Khuzestan, which is a provincial border and can be more than other provinces in
the charge of smuggling wheat, 320,000 tonnes of wheat have been sold to
government centers and 80% of the payment has been paid.

The technical director and vice president of grain and
trading services in Zanjan region 14 said: “It is impossible to ignore the
increase in inflation and the dramatic increase in wheat production costs
compared to previous agro-industrial years, but the guaranteed purchase price
of wheat has reached 1,700 tomans from 1,300 tomans last year.” And it is
hoped that this year will see a significant increase in the purchase of this
strategic product.