Forty Years of Policy Making in the Agriculture Sector Under Criticism

The conference "Forty years of policy-making in the agricultural sector: experiences, lessons and requirements" was organized and organized by the Council of Scientific Associations of Iran and with the attendance of several former ministers of Agriculture and Energy, as well as researchers in the fields of water, soil, agriculture, and energy, at Khatam University.

According to the reporter of Khatam University’s website, the 10th national conference on scientific progress and development of the country titled "Forty years of policy making in the agricultural sector: experiences, lessons and requirements" was held with the efforts of the Council of Scientific Associations of Iran on Wednesday, February 22nd, with the presence of researchers in the fields of agriculture, energy, and power at Khatam University.

Majid Ghasemi, the president of Khatam University and the Council of Scientific Associations of Iran, dedicated his speech in this conference to solving the challenges of the agriculture sector in the country looking at the new technologies.

While recalling the emphasis of the leader of the Islamic Revolution of Iran on the importance of Agriculture in the development of the country and his special view on the green economy, he considered the development of knowledge-based agriculture, the need to use new energies, and the increase of knowledge-based companies in the field of agriculture.

The readiness of Khatam University and Pasargad Bank to support technology-based research in the fields of water and energy

According to the president of Khatam University, the importance of the agriculture sector in the above-mentioned documents, including Article 44 of the Constitution, the 20-year horizon of 1404, the general policies of the resistance economy (paragraphs 6, 7 and 9), the general policies of the government in the agriculture sector (paragraphs 2, 4, 5 and 6), the law of permanent decrees of the development program (Article 61) has been emphasized and in this regard, "the agriculture sector is the most prosperous sector that is supported by general policies."

The Chairman of the Council of Scientific Associations of Iran went on to provide statistics on the state of the agriculture sector and stated: "Employment in the agriculture sector decreased from 17.7% to 16.3% in 2019. Also, the trade balance of this sector is negative and we have a deficit of about 5 billion dollars."

Ghasemi added: "The average growth in the production sector in agriculture is 4.1 percent, and the amount of facilities in this sector has grown very little."

He listed water deficiency, land limitations, not applying new technologies, low productivity, lack of investment opportunities, and lack of integrated and comprehensive development of the supply and consumption chain among the challenges and limitations of the agriculture sector, and at the same time, he proposed hydroponic and aeroponic cultivation as the solutions which can fix these problems.

At the end, the CEO of Pasargad Bank announced the readiness of the bank and Khatam University to support research in the fields of energy and water, which rely on the support of the technology sector, and said: "We are willing to fund these research studies and fully support the researchers in this field."

Mohammad Javad Gholinia, the secretary of this round of the National Conference on Scientific Progress and Development of the country, in a speech pointing to the importance of food security in ensuring the national security and independence of any country, addressed the serious risks that the country is facing in this field and said: "This conference has focused on the issue of policy making in the agriculture sector, so that we can think of solutions to solve the basic problems of this sector."

According to this report, the programs of the 10th National Conference on Scientific Progress and Development of the country entitled "Forty years of policy making in the agriculture sector: experiences, lessons and requirements" continued with a meeting entitled "Agriculture Management and economics, rural development and exploitation systems" which was conducted under the chairmanship of Mahmoud Hojjati, the former Minister of Agriculture Jihad, and with the presence of Mohammad Khodabakhshi, a member of the parliament and the head of the country's balanced development fraction, Javad Mohammad Qolinia, the vice-chairman of the Council of Scientific Associations of Iran, and Gholamhossein Tahmasabi, the head of the Union of Modern Agricultural Sciences Associations.

80% share of agriculture from the utilization of all waters in Iran

The main topic of this panel was "Iran's Agriculture Policymaking: Challenges, Problems and Achievements" and Hossein Shirzad, an expert in the field of agriculture, presented an article on food security and governance challenges.

Pointing out the government's strong involvement in the policies of the agriculture sector, he highlighted the dominance of land-based programs in this policy, and stated that currently, 20% of the country's jobs are related to the agriculture sector. He further added: "Agriculture has a share of 80% in the total utilization of waters in Iran."

Shirzad also mentioned the soil erosion at the rate of 16 tons per hectare in the country and warned that this erosion rate is 4 times higher than the world average.

He also explained: "The security of our investment has become a problem, and the projects of the agriculture sector have always faced financial deficiencies. In addition, we are facing the lack of powerful financial institutions in the agricultural sector."

Agriculture is not just an economic activity but is a lifestyle

The second section of this conference was called "Interaction and effects of agriculture sector policies with and on the national economy (confrontation or alignment)" which was presented by Mojtaba Palouch, the vice president and secretary of the Iranian Rural Scientific Development Association and the deputy head of the Institute for Planning Research, Agricultural Economy and Rural Development. He presented an article in this regard as well.

While presenting a definition of agriculture, he said: "Agriculture is not just an economic activity but a lifestyle, which plays a very important role in preserving the environment and transferring the legacy of the past to future generations, as well as preserving biodiversity."

Paloch also mentioned the role of the agriculture sector in promoting the national economy and emphasized on the necessity of the continuation of the government's policy of supporting agriculture.

In the third part of this conference, entitled "The place of development models and exploitation systems in the policy making of the agriculture sector", Bijan Jahanpanah, the former deputy of the development of organizations and exploitation systems of the Central Organization of Rural Cooperatives, presented an article related to the field.

Stating that we mainly assume the production system is the same as the exploitation system, he explained: "The rural development model has not had the necessary bound with the agricultural development model, which does not make the agriculture sector attractive enough for investors."

Governments are definitely responsible for the imbalance between different economic sectors of the country

Mahmoud Hojjati, the former Minister of Agriculture Jihad, who chaired this conference, said that if there is an imbalance between the various economic sectors of the country and the efficiency is low, the governments are definitely responsible for it. This is especially evident in the agriculture sector, and either overtly or covertly, governments are completely involved. A large part of this intervention is definitely necessary because it is related to people's food security and should not be ignored.

He also added: "Infrastructure in the agriculture sector, which is water and soil, is mainly provided by governments. The government,either directly or indirectly, also subsidizes the production itself."

The former Minister of Agriculture Jihad, while pointing to the appropriate attention paid to water and soil in the 7th Development Plan, said: "One of our problems is the lack of timely and appropriate use of rainfalls. In other words, it is true that the rainfall in our country is low, but in the agriculture sector, even that limited amount of rainfall is not utilized well."

In response to a question about whether you think Iran can become the food hub of the region with this current situation, Hojjati said: "Human ability is definitely more than what you think and we can definitely produce more than this. Some of the issues are not in our hands though, and for example, we cannot harvest corn in the desert. In places where our productivity is low, we should emphasize on increasing the products."

Mohammad Khodabakhshi, a member of the parliament and head of the country's balanced development fraction, also said: "The implementation of the policies of the agriculture sector should be in line with the policies of other sectors, including the industry sector."

According to the same report, the programs of the 10th national conference on scientific progress and development of the country titled "Forty years of policy making in the agriculture sector: experiences, lessons and requirements" continued with a meeting titled "Development programs, resource management, knowledge based works and innovative technologies " which was chaired by Hamid Chit Chian, the former Minister of Energy and a member of the scientific board of the Energy Research Institute, with the presence of Mokhtar Jalali Javaran, a member of the Board of Directors of the Council of Scientific Associations of Iran, and Javad Farhoudi, a professor of the Department of Irrigation and Development at University of Tehran.

Economic excellence in the agriculture sector is not competitive

The first focus of this conference was "Knowledge foundations and policy developments in the agriculture sector", in which Eskandar Zand, a professor of the country's Plant Medicine Research Institute, presented an article on this topic and stated: “Agriculture needs a good research and innovation system. The problem of our agriculture is in its theories."

He also pointed out the non-competitiveness of economic activity in the agriculture sector and added: "When there is no competition, nothing special will happen in terms of the quality of the products. Agriculture is in the context of economy, society, politics and culture and it cannot be separated from other sectors. In fact, we should not expect anything special to happen in the agriculture sector unless the entire network is working well."

Saeed Morid, a member of the academic faculty of Tarbiat Modarres University, presented an article focusing on water policy management, resources-challenges and supply-distribution and emphasized on the effective role of scientific communities in decreasing the agricultural problems. He explained: "We must expand the scope of our activities to the areas such as water, soil and agriculture."

Our country does not have the potential of 8% economic growth with the current conditions

In this meeting, Seyyed Mohammad Ali Ebrahimzadeh Mousavi, the head of the Faculty of Agriculture and Natural Resources of Tehran University, presented an article focusing on the topic of the 7th Development Plan and the necessary requirements in the five-year policy for the agriculture and rural sector.

Criticizing the harvesting model that is currently being implemented in the country, he said: “The protests have been announced to the Minister of AgricultureJihad in this regard. The fact is that our country does not have the potential of 8% economic growth with the current conditions. The foundation of a program should be based on realism, not unattainable dreams.

The necessity of revising water allocation plans

Hamid Chit Chian, the former Minister of Energy, who chaired this panel, said that any planning in any sector, especially those that rely on natural resources, should be seen in relation to each other. This issue might have been one of the reasons for our lack of success in the past programs.

Regarding water sustainability management, he said: "Agricultural production is mainly dependent on water and is increasingly exposed to water hazards. Agriculture is the largest sector of water consumption and one of the biggest polluters of water resources."

Emphasizing that water sustainability management is the key to the future of the country's food and agriculture, a member of the scientific faculty of Power Research Institute pointed out the process of reducing renewable water resources and changes in the country's rainfalls and added: "Due to the decrease in rainfalls, we have seen serious changes in renewable water resources. We use between 90 and 95% of the total renewable water resources; However, we are not allowed to use more than 40% of these resources to balance the water resources."

He also listed the utilization from the earth's surface water beyond the ecological capacity and the low efficiency and productivity of water in all sectors, especially the agriculture sector, as other crises in this sector and demanded a revision of the water allocation program to different parts of the country.