18 - AGRICULTURE

Summary

The economy of our nation is based primarily on agriculture. The majority of our people are engaged in agricultural activities. The backwardness of farming methods and the great deprivations suffered by the masses of farmers have made agricultural development and land reform a critical economic and social question.

This extract from a major speech by Dr ‘Alī Amīnī in 1961 is no simple political asseveration but is supported by all the facts available.

The finances of the Iranian state depend heavily on agriculture. In spite of being the sixth largest petroleum producer in the world Iran still derives between 23 and 30 per cent of her gross national income from farming. Of exports other than oil approximately 97 per cent by value are of agricultural products of which only one quarter—carpets—are fully processed. Even in the case of internal revenue agriculture is of key importance. In the budget for 1342 (1963–4), a not atypical year, of the total estimated revenue, 23 per cent was derived from the sales of agricultural products and services by state monopolies and organizations as compared with 29 per cent from the government share of oil revenues and petrol tax and with 21 per cent from direct and indirect taxation.

Thus Iranian financial stability clearly rests on two founts of wealth, oil and agriculture. The strength of the former, as noted elsewhere, depends on global circumstances, and is evanescent; the latter is primarily a matter of internal organization of the exploitation of territorial resources and can be permanent.