A member of the agriculture commission says the government must import the strategic crop at a price of 4,500 toman to compensate for the deficit of 4 million tonnes of wheat.

Jalal Mahmoodzadeh, member of the Parliamentary Committee on Agriculture, Water, Natural Resources and Environment, said the country’s wheat imports needed more than four million tonnes, but the government announced only one million tonnes.

Representative of Mahabad people in the Majlis pointed out that in the harvest season the government and the Ministry of Agriculture Jihad noted that the low price of guaranteed wheat purchase would not deliver this strategic product to government silos. The government has directed this crop to livestock.

“Some of the wheat harvested is being smuggled out of the country and another part is stored in warehouses in hopes of raising prices,” the MP said. “Unfortunately, the government managed only eight million out of thirteen million. Tons of wheat from last year to buy from farmers.

Mahmoudzadeh emphasized that failure to raise the guaranteed purchase price of two thousand and two hundred tomans this year would have similar problems to the previous year. Infrastructure for the agricultural sector could easily supply the country’s needed wheat from the domestic market.