TEHRAN, Nov. 25 (Xinhua) -- Iran's Ministry of Agriculture announced to transfer all vegetable farms to greenhouses within the next 10 years, Financial Tribune daily reported on Saturday.
The area under greenhouse cultivation in Iran presently spans 12,157 hectares, 38 percent bigger compared with the one in mid-2013 when President Hassan Rouhani took office, said Valiollah Bani-Ameri, executive of Greenhouse Expansion Project undertaken by the Ministry of Agriculture.
The ministry plans to increase the country's greenhouse area to more than 48,000 hectares by the end of the 20-Year Vision Plan (2005-25), Bani-Ameri was quoted as saying.
The official noted that the ministry expects to produce 21 million tons of agro products in greenhouses per year when the project is completed.
Ali Ashraf Mansouri, head of Tehran's Agricultural Jihad Organization, said the area under greenhouse cultivation in Tehran province amounts to more than 3,150 hectares, accounting for more than a quarter of all greenhouses in the country.
Besides, "Iran produces 1.55 billion cut flowers per year with Tehran Province accounting for 850 million, or 57 percent of the total sum," Mansouri said.
He added that an export terminal for flowers and plants has recently opened in the city of Eslamshahr in southwest Tehran while another is under construction in the city of Pishva also in southern Tehran.
According to Deputy Agriculture Minister Mohammad Ali Tahmasebi, the construction of per square meter of a greenhouse in Iran costs up to 2,000 U.S. dollars.
