It appeared to be an odd reason to buy wheat—especially since there are no sanctions barring Iran from buying wheat or other foodstuffs!
Fars also failed to mention that some of those major purchases Iran is making are from the United States. US trade figures show Iran bought $38 million worth of wheat from the United States in April and another $36 million in May, the latest month for which statistics have been published.
This is only the second year since the 1979 revolution that Iran has bought American wheat.
Iran claimed in 2004 that it had become self-sufficient in wheat. But it has imported wheat in every year since then save one, although it has bought US wheat only in 2008 and 2012.
Rather than a game to expose the failure of sanctions, it seemed more likely Iran was buying wheat now because it still cannot produce enough at home.
Many agricultural specialists say it is foolish for Iran even to enshrine wheat self-sufficiency as a goal as its dry climate and erratic rainfall makes that an unreasonable goal.
Despite much investment and all those public pronouncements of self-sufficiency, Iran has once again become one of the world’s major importers of wheat this year.
In February, Iran bought about two million tons of wheat from Russia, Brazil, Germany, Canada and Australia.
Despite that, the large purchase of US wheat surprised US suppliers. “It shocked me,” Jerrod Leman, a broker with Wellington Commodities, told Reuters. “With everything going on over there with their nuclear problems, I am surprised we sold them anything.”
A trader at Louis Dreyfus told Reuters, “It is a sign that they really need wheat.”
US sanctions do not target food purchases by Iran. The US Treasury Department does not require traders to seek permission for the supply of food products to Iran.
But US banking restrictions impact all transactions, including food purchases. Some US suppliers have reported Iran is struggling to process its payments. But Cargill, an American grain supplier, said it would process shipments despite Iran’s difficulties.
In 2008, Iran had to import six million tons of wheat—making it the world’s largest wheat importer that year—after a drought left the country in short supply, although authorities had announced in 2004 that Iran was self-sufficient in wheat.
The Islamic Republic remained defiant despite the need. “The country will not be buying even one kilogram of wheat directly from the United States,” Agriculture Ministry spokesman Mohammad-Hossain Ansari said in August 2008. Later that year Iran – not intermediaries –booked more than 1 million tons in its first wheat purchases from the United States since the 1979 revolution.