Current Situation of Food Security in Iran and Future Outlook

“National security” covers various areas including “food security.” As a result, increasing security index of foodstuff is one of the main goals of political elites in every country. Despite the emphasis put by the Islamic Republic of Iran’s economic development plans on the necessity of achieving self-sufficiency in agriculture and increasing food security index, the actual performance of this sector has been far from the ideal and the situation has become even worse in the past few years. Lack of a comprehensive approach to removing barriers facing food producers and unprecedented rise in government’s foreign exchange revenues which led to increased import of agricultural inputs and products, have been among major factors reducing Iran’s food security index in recent years. Such challenges and incomplete implementation of Subsidies Reallocation Act, have cast doubts on future outlook of food security in the country. This paper explains ways of increasing food security, including the need to revise foodstuff “pricing policies” and “import policies” in order to prove the above hypothesis.