The animal feed industry in Iran got off the ground around 64 years ago concurrent with the industrialization of animal husbandry and poultry farming in the country.

“At present, some 645 livestock, poultry and fish feed production units have been registered in the country with an overall working capital of about 300 trillion rials (over $7.92 billion). Of the total sum, more than 40% amounting to 120 trillion rials (over $3.17 billion) pertain to industrial units and the rest to livestock, poultry and fish farms that produce feeds,” Majid Movafeq Qadiri, chairman of Iran Feed Association, told Financial Tribune.

According to Qadiri, local production of feed meets 99% of domestic demand.

As mentioned above, apart from the industrial units, domestic animal farms engage in feed production mainly to provide for their own demand, though this is not the global norm.

“In 2015, more than 70% of the required feed were produced in farms whereas industrial feed production units, which are directly responsible for supplying feed worldwide, worked at 30% of their capacity. Yet, the trend is changing and last year 40% of the 19-million-ton domestic livestock feed were produced in industrial units. The reason is that subsidies have been eliminated, foreign exchange rates have been stabilized and energy tariffs have decreased. Hence, producing livestock feed in farms is no longer economically viable,” he said.

The official noted that there were 10 domestic factories in the field before the 1979 Islamic Revolution and the amount of investment that has gone into the industry since then stands close to 30 trillion rials (over $792 million).

Until the fiscal 2001-02, the number of factories reached around 300, the official added, which have by now more than doubled.

Source:  Financial Tribune // Original Article