According to the FARS news agency, Iran’s Head of Fisheries Nabiollah Khanmirzayee, made the claim this week, noting that in the previous 12 months, up to March 2019 (when the current Iranian calendar year ends), the country had produced 1.1 million tonnes through aquaculture.
Breaking down the figures he said that Iran currently ranked first in the word in terms of rainbow trout production and third in the world in terms of sturgeon production, while shrimp production continues to rise despite sporadic disease challenges.
Speaking in an international fisheries and aquaculture exhibition on Tehran, Khanmirzayee said it had become a policy of the Iranian government to encourage consumption of seafood and white meat to reduce an annual import of 150,000 tons of red meat into the country.
Late in June, according to FARS, Iranian Minister of Agriculture Mahmoud Hojjati announced that the country had quadrupled its shrimp production since 2013, reaching 50,000 tonnes in early 2019.
According to government estimates, Iran exported some 22,000 tonnes of shrimp, worth of around $150 million, in the year ending March 2018.
Iran aims to meet a target of 60,000 tonnes of shrimp production by 2021 by expanding the farms in southern regions like Sistan and Baluchistan as well as those along the coast of the Caspian Sea.
