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Presently, our first priority which will be discussed at the first meeting of the Council of Deputies, is to examine the main issue in the field of agriculture, namely the provision of basic inputs and goods needed by the people.

The Minister of Agriculture-Jahad stated: “Protecting the people’s food dish and peace in supplying basic goods is our first priority.”

Providing the required foreign currency is very important for us, he added. “This year, when we were suffering from drought, we had shortages to supply fodder and other basic goods, so we are emphasizing providing foreign currency to import them” he mentioned.” We had discussion about it in the morning session and these talks will continue until next week, and we hope to be able to manage the supply, considering the foreign currency availability.

While referring to the farmers who are either preparing for the autumn cultivation or preparing for the next cultivation season, Dr. Sadati Nejad emphasized: “In this regard, two main issues are the ministry’s priority before starting cultivation including determining the guaranteed price, which we will try to address in the Pricing Council to be formed on upcoming Monday, and the second issue is the supply of agricultural inputs such as pesticides, fertilizer and seeds. We do our best so that farmers do not have problems in their autumn cultivation”.

He continued: “One of the other important issues is providing insurance compensation, which has not been paid to farmers for some time, and also the delay in repaying farmers’ instalments, which has been approved due to drought, but has not been implemented and would be addressed in two weeks.”

The Minister of Agriculture-Jahad, stating that we will manage food security by setting up a committee and able to use the pioneers capacities in the ministry to strengthen to monitor the food security criteria, monitoring, supply and control chain. And we will set up oversight in the ministry to minimize various fluctuations.

The Minister pointing out that we in the Ministry of Agriculture Jahad deal with 85 million Iranians, said: The agricultural sector is the most private and popular sector in the Iranian economy, so producers, organizations, unions, cooperatives, sector activists And we expect the existing trade unions to participate in policy-making, management, decision-making and decision-making with the Ministry of Agriculture-Jahad.

He added: “If we are going to supply the market of basic products and goods of the people, we must do it with the help of this sector actors and use their capacities. I believe that a large community of people and jobs in the country belong to this sector”.

We are dealing with a community of over 21 million people in agriculture sector, and these people are the best option to control market fluctuations and regulate the market and marketing so that they can take advantage of their own resources and eliminate intermediaries.

The Minister stated: “Supplying inputs, monitoring the market and marketing are our short-term goals that we will pay attention as our first priority by applying the actors’ capacities to better oversight”.

Chair of the Board and CEO of the SFIDA, Dr. J. Behzad Nasab, in a meeting with the Parliament Members of North Khorasan Province on Wednesday, August 4, 2021 said: Barriers to Agricultural Production, which is on the agenda of the Islamic Consultative Assembly can be used as an opportunity to organize the important issues of the market, the financial and credit system and investment in the agriculture sector. It can improve productivity and remove barriers of production by the farmers’ community.

He added: Funds for Agriculture have many supportive laws for equipping and developing which can be the executive arm to strengthen the country’s food security and remove obstacles to production in the agriculture sector.

Alizadeh Moghadam, member of the board and deputy CEO of SFIDA, referring to some articles of the national program entitled: “Plan to strengthen the country’s food security and remove barriers to production in the agriculture sector,” said: The articles of this plan can be modified to serve the farming community. Addressing  the problems of the financing system in the agricultural sector, he stated: ” To address this problem, funds to support the development of the agricultural sector with the aim of capital formation, expanding  the volume and quality of investment with the share more than 51% owned by producers and 49% owned by the Ministry of Agriculture Jahad were set up”. These funds are a joint stock company and are governed by commercial law.

He told: Currently, 162 funds to support the development of the agricultural sector in the form of provincial, county, women, national, natural and regional funds with a capital of two thousand and 500 billion Tomans have been formed. Also, Abdullah Yousefi, head of the North Khorasan Agriculture Jahad Organization and representative of the SFIDA in the North Khorasan Provincial Fund, explained on the performance of eight County funds and the provincial fund in financing, helping to provide the required inputs and marketing of agricultural products of the province. In the meeting, emphasis was placed on quantitative development, capital increase and realization of capital adequacy of funds to support the development of the agriculture sector and the share of government in funds to support the development of the agriculture sector of the province.

Chairman and CEO of SFIDA along with members of the board, CEOs and representatives of the SFIDA in national and provincial funds attended in a webinar organized by SFIDA on Wednesday, August 13, 2021. “Although there are many good experiences in the world which can be useful  for us, we have also success stories with SFIDA and its affiliated Funds to share with the world. Once it was selected by CIRDAP as a success story of Iran and shared with its 15 member countries” Chairman and CEO of SFIDA said.

He added: “Documenting and creating a special space for introducing the SFIDA in different platforms and websites should be on the agenda.” He mentioned: The English website is one of the platform to present us to the world which can be considered as entrance gate to the world.

Behzad Nasab stated: modeling of the success stories should be done and activities of SFIDA should be presented scientifically and up-to-date to domestic and foreign conferences. Hossein Shahbaz, an international affairs expert of the SFIDA, also spoke about the objectives, programs, process and possible activities in the international arena and added: “It is better for the SFIDA and its affiliated funds to be more familiar with international organizations similar with SFIDA approach operating in Iran and outside and engage in wider activity in this area. He asked the CEO of Funds present at the meeting to send their proposals for further interaction with international organizations and institutions to the international unit of the SFIDA.

Dr. Khavazi, minister of the Agriculture Jahad in a TV programme stated that the important point is the sensitivity of policy in the agricultural sector. He mentioned: “In agriculture sector, any related policy if not properly expertized will lead to dissatisfaction of producers or consumers and affect the production chain.”

Referring to the integrated management of the value chain of agricultural products and food, the Minister of Agriculture Jahad said: “Any country that can have a more integrated management in this field, can meet the goals of producers, consumers and related industries.”

He added: “In addition to integrated management, the degree of dependence of the whole chain on abroad is very important. The more we depend on the food production chain abroad, the more it will affect the way of production.”

Regarding the incoherence in the value chain of agricultural products and its integrated management, he said: “One of the examples in the field of livestock is that the Livestock Affairs Support Company, which is managed by the Ministry of Agriculture Jahad, has not been able to buy meat from domestic producers to keep as strategic reserves, because every time it was raised in the market regulation headquarters, they opposed it and considered this action to increase the price of meat, while this is not the case. So, greater responsiveness and properly meet the needs of producers and consumers will occur if the decision maker is one organization and integrated value chain management used.

The fifth festival of young thinkers and scientists, called the Festival of the Century, is organized by the Jamili Charity Foundation with the aim of supporting knowledge-based ideas, cultivating talents, strengthening the spirit of innovation, and creating motivation and hope among young people.

The winners of this festival will receive the financial support of Jamili Charity Association. Activists with new ideas in the agricultural sector are hereby invited to submit their ideas to the festival. It is further mentioned that in the fourth festival, two of the ideas that were selected and supported were related to the agricultural sector.

More information is available on the festival website at http://ysf-persia.com/For more information, please call +98-21-42916237 during office hours or visit www.agri-peri.ac.ir.

Referring to the memorandum of cooperation signed with the Vice-President for Science and Technology (http://en.isti.ir/), Center for Strategic Technologies Development and Biotechnology Development Headquarters, the executive instructions of this memorandum issued by Dr. Janali Behzadnasb, CEO and chair of SFIDA to the heads of the provincial agriculture Jahad organizations and the representatives of SFIDA at provincial Funds.
The instruction emphasized the objectives of the memorandum to help knowledge and technology development in agriculture by using the capacity of the funds to support the development of the agricultural sector as well as the support of knowledge-based companies active in the agricultural sector.
In this notification, it is emphasized that the board of directors of the funds provide the maximum use of the capacities of this memorandum and the relevant instructions in the funds and send regular periodic reports to SFIDA in quarterly stages of work progress. A copy of memorandum is available in local language webpage.
(https://sfida.ir/fa/%d8%af%d8%b3%d8%aa%d9%88%d8%b1%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%b9%d9%85%d9%84-%d8%a7%d8%ac%d8%b1%d8%a7%db%8c%db%8c-%d8%aa%d9%81%d8%a7%d9%87%d9%85-%d9%86%d8%a7%d9%85%d9%87-%d9%87%d9%85%da%a9%d8%a7%d8%b1%db%8c-%d8%a8/)

When SFIDA was set up in 2004 there were only two kind of Funds including National Fund and Provincial Fund with 4 and 5 numbers respectively.

Later the category of Funds increased and now there are six kind of Funds. The new of them are i. County Fund, ii. Women Fund, iii. Natural Resources Fund (NRF) and iv. Regional Fund. Annually there were a lot of request from different part of the country to set up new Funds jointly with SFIDA.

The above figure shows the annual new Funds in different categories. In 2012 and 2019, more than other years new Funds set up. SFIDA is trying to be present in all over the country geographically to provide support to the more stakeholders active in agriculture sector.

On Monday, August 2, 2021, a meeting was held for the Dairy Products Development Support Fund attended by Dr. Esfandiari, Director General, Majid Asadollahi, Deputy Director General, Agro Based and Food Industries office, Ministry of Agriculture Jahad, Alireza Ashrafi, Advisor to the CEO, Dariush Arabi, Director of Assemblies and Representatives , Houshang Mohammadi, Director of Operations Development and Productivity Improvement, Shahriar Rostami, Director of Investment Development and Facilities of the SFIDA.

The importance of the Dairy Products Fund to ensure partially the food security of the country, provide strategies to be benefited from legal capacities to improve productivity, improving the performance of Dairy Products Fund and possible synergy with SFIDA were discussed.

Dr. J.A. Behzadnasab, Chairman and CEO of SFIDA on Tuesday, June 9, 2021, met Elias Tajaldini, Chairman of the Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad Agriculture Jahad Organization, and Shahram Asgari, Chairman of the Kohgiluyeh and Boyer Agricultural Sector Development Support Fund Referring to the memorandum signed with the Vice President for Science and Technology to strengthen the funds, said: “In order to provide financial resources and diversify resources, you need to consider new solutions such as subsidy.”

Elias Tajaldini, the head of Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad Agriculture Jahad Organization also asked the SFIDA to help the province Funds to develop and strengthen and added: “The capital of the city funds is small and you need to think of an approach;” However, in the Agriculture Jahad Organization, we organize a lot of meetings any do many efforts to advance the fund, but not much improvement.

He stated: The relationship between the Fund for Supporting the Development of the Agricultural Sector of Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad Province and the organization of this province is good and this can lead to its development and strengthening in the end.

Shahram Asgari, The Chairman of the Kohkiloye and Boyer Ahmad province Fund for Supporting the Development of the Agricultural Sector expressed his satisfaction with the progress of the Fund and the formation of city funds in the last two years and added: The Planning and Budget Organization in the province also promised its cooperation with and assistance the Fund. To strengthen and develop the city and provincial funds, we hope the cooperation will be happened as soon as possible.

Ayatullah Eskandari, the CEO of the Fund for Supporting the Development of the Agricultural Sector of the province also spoke about the effective activities of the fund in 2020 such as purchasing seeds from Kurdistan province due to lack of seeds for Boyer Ahmad and Dena counties and also to buy apple fruit through the Dena Rural Cooperative Union to organize the fruit market on the eve of new year Eid (Festival) in the province, this fund came into operation and worked well.

This great decree, with the presence of faithful, young and religious human resources and with sincerity, became the source of great blessings in the development of villages, agriculture and the presence and powerful role in the eight years of holy defense against Iraq imposed War. This caused these days to be celebrated every year as “Agricultural Jahad Week”.

 Based on the menus of the Honorable Supreme Leader, the Agriculture Development Supportive Funds are determined to support production to achieve a leap in production, as non-governmental platforms and drivers in the field of organizing the financing, credit and investment system of the agricultural sector. They Play their role in achieving and stabilizing food security and sustainable production support. I congratulate the memory of the martyrs and all trenchless builders in the field of efforts, this week to the managers and community of shareholders of funds to support the development of the agricultural sector, as well as dear colleagues of the SFIDA and Funds in the country. “I would like to thank and appreciate the efforts made by the Funds to Support the Development of the Agricultural Sector to promote the agricultural sector and the quantitative and qualitative development.”

Shahrokh Shajari, Deputy Minister of Management Development and Resources, the Ministry of Agriculture Jahad (MAJ), said in a ceremony celebrating the best actors of the agricultural sector in Tehran province, which was held on June 14 at the Agricultural Jahad Department in Rey town: Lack of investment in the agricultural sector has caused the damage to the sector not to grow more. Agriculture sector, which is responsible for food security of the country, is much more vulnerable than the past.

“The country’s macro-level decisions in the field of agriculture should be such that non-specialized banks has to invest at least 15 percent in this field. Also, the input of the National Development Fund should be allocated 10 percent to the agricultural sector while it is now below 2%.” He added.

“Depreciation of investments in the agricultural sector must be compensate by new investments.There is a deep performance gap between premier selected farmers and other farmers. This is a negative point that shows that efficiency and productivity among farmers are not as it should be.” He said.He believed: “The experiences of premier farmers should be transferred to other farmers and farms to improve productivity to witness a great change in agriculture, in this way, officials should provide the ground for investment in extension farms.”

He said that the planning of MAJ during the last eight years helped farmers to be able to increase their livestock production from 12 million tons to 16 million tons. Fishery production was increased from 900 thousand tons in 2013 to more than one million tons in the year 2020, which shows the efforts of fishermen in this field.The value added growth of the agricultural sector has increased from 3.7% in 2013 to 9% in 2020, while the GDP growth of the agricultural sector value added has been less and even negative. Shajari continued: “Currently, the share of the agricultural sector in the country’s employment is about 17.8 percent, which should be noted that with the development of the country, the employment of the agricultural sector should be reduced due to the new machinery.”

A preliminary meeting to set up the Makoran Agricultural Development Support Fund with the presence of the Director of Operations Development and Productivity Improvement of the SFIDA, Director General of Far Water Fisheries (Chabahar County) of the Agricultural Development Fund of Sistan and Baluchestan province, the directors of Agriculture Jahad in Chabahar, Konarak, Dashtiari counties, a number of farmers and organizations in the agricultural sector was held on May 27 2021.

Houshang Mohammadi, Director of Operations Development and Productivity Improvement of the SFIDA announced in this meeting: Fund for Support of Development of the Agricultural Sector of Makoran Region with the participation of the government and farmers and organizations in Chabahar, Konarak And Dashtiari with the aim of

1.      Helping producers and providing suitable conditions for economic production

2.      Creating incentives for stabilization and promotion of added value and

3.      Finally helping to develop the agricultural sector using the legal capacity of Article 12 of the Law on the Ministry of Agriculture Jahad and Article 17 of the Law on Increasing Agriculture productivity and natural resources are formed.

The capital of this Fund will be reached to 1000 billion Rials over five years, Mohammadi added. The initial capital of 100 billion will be provided with the participation of producers in different agricultural sectors of Makoran region (Chabahar, Konarak and Dashtiari) and the government. The shareholders of the fund are coming from natural and legal persons of agricultural operators in Makoran region.So far, 162 funds to support the development of the agricultural sector at the provincial, specialized-product levels, rural and nomadic women, natural resources, urban and regional with a capital of more than 24 thousand billion Rials with government participation and 8144 organizations consist of more than 125000 farmers and producers in the agricultural sector. This Fund will be the second Fund to support the Agriculture sector of the Makoran region.