IFIF Public Relations- One of the main events during the revolution in Iran was official change of ownership order and unofficial transfer in some of the ownership rules and properties; so in this order the process of agro-industry suffered severely.

Tehran- Mohammadreza Mortazavi, the Secretary General of Industry, Mine and Tread minister expressed his views about the economic and social situation of Iran in an interview. You can find the conversation below:

*Argo-Industries are industries that converting the crops to food in large cultivation process. Where does the idea of this industry come from?

- There has always been a conflict between farmers and artisans and this conflict is still going on. Farmers around the world believe that the result of their labor would purchase with low-price and make a great amount of value-added on the goods and our labor would turn into a great profit for them.

In fact comparing the price of processing industries and the total price of the same product in the market has been always a problem. Agriculture would be profitable in a short and specifies amount of time. For instance in Khozestan agriculture products should be collected during 10 to 15 days; and the process on them will be done during a year. In fact in processing industries the needed amount of a whole year should be purchased in 10 days and this action needs injecting a lot of money to the cycle.

For example the daily amount of daily material consumption in a manufactory is 100 to 200 tons; they need to buy 60.000 tons in one time to consume little by little during the year. This is a huge economic action that need a big amount of wealth.

The conflict between farmers and artisans led the farmers to establish cooperatives with stocks and manufactories all around the world in 1930s to 1950s. The cooperatives could make the best amount of value-added for farmers and based on the cooperative establishment, agro-industries were formed in the lands with possibilities of wide cultivation.

*Does agro-industries can contribute to the development process in rural areas?

- When cultivations mix with industry activities and transformation of goods to total product, can preserve the profit within the system. In agro-industry, the profit of both activities can go to the farmers and farmers are people who live in rural areas. For instance, in cultivation of tomatoes and sauce each has a separate profit margin. It means agro-culture can make a great environment for absorbing more capital for development of rural areas.

* can we say agro-culture is equal to agricultural cooperatives?

- To some extent, yes. But it should be notice that vast cultivation is not associated to ownership. Maybe the size of the land is 10 Ha, but all the owners share a specific product together and plant canola, for instance. This can be seen in other parts of the world too. For example in Europe the size of the counties are small and the lands are limited too and place by each other. In this small lands, farmers plant as highly expert agricultural cooperatives. In this situation the main purpose of establishment of agro-cultures is creating the maximum value for the owners.

In contrast, the plots of lands in vast countries like United States, Russia, Canada, Ukraine, Australia and Kazakhstan where land values ??are not very high, is very large. In this countries along with large tracts of land, processing or packaging units are established to keep maximum added value in agriculture. But in this case, the ownership of the land is not in the hands of several owners, but to a great owner. In this context, profit from the established agro-industry will continue to benefit farmers and not only the owner. So based on this system the task of cooperatives is coordinating the farmers and their interests.

*In Iran before and after the revolution, several agro-industry has been established in Iran. How was the experience of this industry? Have they been able to play an effective role in rural development?

- In Iran the experience of agro-industry units has been really unsuccessful and there are a number of reasons for this failure. One of them was land reform during the monarchy time. In that time leftist intellectual was prevalent in the world. In Iran due to its proximity with the Soviet Union, Marxism and communism was widespread, and even many of the young Muslims were influenced by these ideas. In these circumstances, the Americans insisted to prevent this from happening and rotation of the socialist camp, in the land reform and the king also believed responsible for the implementation of these reforms. So goverment always felt a high level of danger from the rural areas to impose the rural semi-feudal society (or as we mention in our social literature “The lord and vassal” society) to extensive social changes in the villages.

In these circumstances, the Americans insisted to prevent the rotation of the socialist camp from happening and disassemble land reforms in Iran. So the figure for implementation of this program was the king of Iran.

According to the book “Iran between two revolutions” written by Ervand Abrahamian before the events in August 1941, Reza Khan, The king of Iran seized a large portion of lands and villages of Iran and document the lands under his own name. The amount of the lands were so vast that when Reza Khan left the country, he was the biggest land owner of the world. After him, leaving the country the lands were state inheritance of the royal family. But since at that time of the history vast ownership of the royal family was not beneficial, Iran’s king was not reluctant to division and fragmentation of agricultural land.

Therefore, because of pressure from the Americans and the kings personal inclinations, land reform started and agricultural lands were divided into small pieces. In my opinion, this action hurt the country's agriculture. Because in the old feudalism system, a set of social relations and relations of production were formed and institutionalized; but in the process of land reform this system disappeared in the form of command.

However, the oppressive relations between lord and vassal was resolved in the framework of the law. However, there was a contract between peasants and lords. For example, farmers were not allowed to fire a farmer who have worked on the ground. There has always been a conflict between landlords and peasants, in my opinion, the peasants had the upper hand in this battle, because those were the ones who worked on the land and own production.

* Does it mean that land reform and division of lands between the peasants was detriment to them?

- After the land reform, we couldn’t implement the model of the United States and Europe in Iran. We couldn’t establish cooperative unite with high unity and literate. The lands were crushed and was not enough for making enough living for farmers. In this case, farmers started immigration from rural areas to cities and turned to workers in large cities. Agricultural lands remained vacant and undermined the country's agriculture.

In my opinion, land reform and the elimination of equations in the countryside, should be done officially in rural areas and not by dividing the lands. It should be a system like today’s shopping centers and markets. In shopping centers there is a property owner but there are different shop owners that can start the business they want in the shops.

Another problem occurred after the land reform and was an important subject in the history of Iran’s, is that after the reform, no one were in charge of dredging of wells and aqueducts in rural area. For this reason, fields and dry wells were destroyed.

After the migration of rural people, other group of people came and bought the lands and turn the agricultural lands to cooperative of agricultural productions at 1970s for the first time in Iran agriculture workers started to work in the lands as farmers.

* The Iranian revolution disrupted some monarchy transactions, although it didn’t change all governing relations. What was the effect of these developments on the agricultural and agro-industrial activities?

- Before the revolution in Iran, some large industrial cultivation were formed such as the Haft Tapeh cultivation, Moghan, 1&1. After the revolution, this industry became weak because of a new set of land reforming. In the period of time between 1960s and 1970s, because the special forms of relationship between land owners and farmers, rural areas were faced some troubles.  The emergence of left intellectuals and their presence in large areas of farming also made the situation worst. For example, the Tudeh Party, Fadaiyan and those who had left ideas were focused on areas such as Golestan, Khuzestan, Kurdistan and West Azerbaijan.

In these areas, there were also large landowners and in the absence of regulations the issue of ethnicity led to dissatisfaction due to protect the rights of different social groups. This eventually led to another land reform. In the previous land reform rural areas divided and they made vast lands with small land owners; but this time vast land -100 to 200 hectars were formed in small pieces and this reform damaged the unity of agricultural lands.

* One of the main events in Iran’s revolution was official change of the ownership system and informal transformation of some properties and documents. Does this process have significant effects on agro-industry?

- In this process Agro-industry suffered severely. However, before the revolution, the owners of these industries has some relations and dependence to the government and the royal family. Therefore, after the revolution, they abandoned their land and production to the revolutionary government and escaped from the country. In that situation government seized their property. This has nothing to do with the revolution and the root of the problems belongs to before the revolution era.

In Iran, major economic activities always has somehow association with the government. The government wants to be present in the economy and place a large part of the institutions under the governmental supervision. This presence was cristal clear at the duration of Shah’s government; Because they had the tendency to Looting the resources and national assets. After the revolution in the period due to war conditions, the state of the economy was necessary and inevitable. But after that, this process continued mainly because of personal interests.

It is not possible to establish a huge collection but don’t have any dependency. People should refer to departments and coordinate with officials and managers.  In the Pahlavi period the owner of an industry, production and land, should be partner with a General or a Princess to move forward the main activities. As someone who had great economic activities, I can say that it was not possible to do economic activities without the dependence to the royal family or establish Iran national and earn a huge amount of wealth. Because anyway the King family would intrefier and this process made my family to quit most of their economic activities.

I can assure you that Ashraf Pahlavi was one of the pillars of drug trafficking to Europe and this kind of government interference in the economy was abusing the economy of the country because of the governmental dependency. This government rent would disappear with big events like revolution and smaller events like elections and transformation of the government and a new group of people start to benefit from the situation.

* do you think government intervention in the economy and a desire for private gain was one of the reasons for the failure of the agro-industry in Iran?

- Economy, production and agriculture in the country is damaging because of the selfish politicians and this is one of the major causes of failure of agribusiness in Iran. The entrance of political elements, politicians and owners of rent-producing state in the economy cause failure and loss of public benefits in our country. Agro-industry is not exempt from this problems too.

Is it possible to rescue agribusiness?

-the first need of rescuing agriculture and industry of Iran is withdrawal of politicians and military figures from economic activities. A person who can make a living with political or military wages and have advantages like power, fame, social status and welfare benefits should remain in the same field. Political or military figures, should not be allowed to enter the economic activity. Because it is corrupted.

* Based on the current situation, which one is better? Agro-industrial development or to take a different approach?

- Unfortunately, Iran researchers has never done appropriate studies to establish agro-industry. Even agriculture is not in its proper place. For example, in Urmia, established orchards is traditional and watering is based on flooding which causes environmental degradation.

It seems to meKhuzestan with more than 1.5 million hectares lands, abundant water and good weather, can provide Food with proper planning. Golestan, Mazandaran and Gilan can become "Netherlands" of Iran with proper planning and produce a high amount of dairy. This area has the potential establishment of agro-industry. If agro-industry in these regions is formed, apart from local growth, also agricultural growth wiould be significant./