ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Beet farmers in Iran’s Kurdish Mukriyan region complain of falling profits, saying they may have to give up an age-old livelihood unless the government helps and things improve.
“Sixty to 70 percent of Mukriyanis live off growing beet, but the business is no longer profitable,” said farmer Anwar Rahimzade, explaining that beet farming has been a tradition for the region.
“If the government does not find a solution we might quit growing beet in search of something profitable,” he told Rudaw.
Farmers and government officials give conflicting statements on the reasons behind the beet-related woes in Mukriyan, a region comprising the cities of Shino, Mahabad, Orumiyeh, Piranshahr, Sardasht, and Miandoab.
Mukriyanis are discouraged from growing beet because they are facing many difficulties with sugar companies, and the government is not being supportive, Rahimzadeh complained.
Nabi Qahramani, an engineer at the Orumiyeh Sugar Company said that, “Last year we bought beet from farmers and they got paid after a month.”
Ali Abadian, a member of the Miandoab Farmers Union, said, “People used to grow rice and cotton in Miandoab. Later, they realized that the local weather is very conducive to growing beet, particularly after the establishment of the Miandoab Sugar Company by the Germans in 1937.”
Rahimzade said that that production costs were double what farmers earned after harvest, and asked the government to intervene.
Qahramani said the government did provide assistance, one example being that it imports seeds from Europe and distributes the free among farmers.
He said that sugar companies have signed more than 4,000 contracts with beet producers, and that prices this year had increased by 15 percent.
According to Iranian government statistics, Mukriyan produces 50 percent of the nation’s sugar beets. In 2011, the region produced two million tons of beets, but the next year output had fallen to 1.75 million tons.
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