Financial Tribune

Provinces of Fars, Isfahan, Khorasan Razavi, South Khorasan, Yazd, Markazi, Semnan and Lorestan are top pomegranate producers in Iran, IRIB News reported.

According to the official, Iran exported 15,000 tons of pomegranates worth $15 million to Russia, Iraq, South Korea, Switzerland, France and Germany in the last Iranian year (March 2018-19).

She says the annual capacity for exports is 10 times more and has reached 150,000 tons.

“Pomegranate production in Iran has been on a decline in the past two to three years due to drought and frostbite,” she said.

Iran is said to be the leading pomegranate producer in the world followed by India, China, Turkey and the US. 

The country has the world’s biggest germplasm of pomegranates in Yazd, which is made up of a collection of 780 genotypes of the fruit.

Some 3 million tons of pomegranates are cultivated across the world per annum.