Miller Magazine Issue: 119 November 2019

IRAN 93 MILLER / NOVEMBER 2019 tion in Iran while the rest belongs to traditional bread bakers. Only 2% of the total flour share allocated for all bakeries belong to industrial bakeries while the re- maining 98% pertain to traditional bakers. Currently, 80% of the flour distributed across the country are subsidized and the rest is supplied at market rates. In January 2019, a deal among Iran, Kazakhstan and the Russian was concluded on the supply of wheat via the Caspian Sea in order to increase the utilization of the Iranian wheat flour mills with excess capacity and, consequently, expand the Iranian ex- ports of flour to third countries via the Persian Gulf. The Iranian private millers are not allowed to use the domestic wheat destined to supply the domes- tic market for flour exports. All wheat imports are meant to be re-exported, while domestic wheat is only consumed in the country. The Government Trading Corporation of Iran (GTC) buys milling wheat on the international market and manages grain storage and is also responsible for buying part of Iran’s subsidized domestic wheat pro- duction. Iranian millers buy wheat to GTC and the flour they produced is fortified with iron and folic acid. The al- most 350 flour mills operating in Iran have a pro- duction capacity of 24 million tons per year vs. 11.5 million tons of local consumption i.e. basically 50% of average use of capacity. Iran has a greater potential to increase the agri- cultural production. Efficient use of water resources, reduction of food loss, and further improvement on transportation infrastructure are key issues to be ad- dressed to achieve this.