<p></p><p>An official has estimated that 260 thousand tons of pistachio will be harvested in the current Iranian year (began March 20) indicating an 8000-ton increase compared with a year before. <br></p> <p>Managing director of the Winter Fruits section of Horticulture Department at Ministry of Agriculture Ramazan Rooeentan said the volume of pistachio production reached about 250 thousand tons in the previous Iranian calendar year while the figure is estimated to climb by nearly eight thousand tons. <br></p> <p>“A total of 130,000 tons of the product were exported in the past year,” highlighted the official adding “around 13 thousand tons of pistachio were deployed to world markets in the first two months of the current year spanning from March 20 to May 20.” <br></p> <p>Rooeentan deemed the country’s pistachio production conditions as satisfactory; “Iran possesses excellent pistachio gardens and the production is continuing an upward trend.” <br></p> <p>At the moment, about 380 thousand hectares of the gardens in Iran are under the cultivation of pistachio, 320 thousand hectares of which are fertile and the rest, non-fertile. <br></p> <p>The sum of the world pistachio is being one million tons and it is mainly produced in countries like Iran, the US, Turkey, China, Syria, Greece, Italy, Afghanistan, Australia and Tunisia, while the least (less than 2 thousand tons) is produced by Australia and Afghanistan.<br></p><p></p>