Financial Tribune- Iran has 900,000 hectares under vegetable cultivation and produces about 28 million tons of different kinds of vegetables per year, making it the seventh and fifth in the world in terms of land under cultivation and volume of production respectively, the chairman of Horticultural Science Research Institute said.

Darab Hosseini added that some 1 billion tons of vegetables are produced over 60 million hectares of land across the world and China tops the list.

He added that the lion�s share of vegetable cultivation in Iran is carried out in open land, although plans are underway to increase the country�s greenhouse area, IRNA reported.

�The area under greenhouse cultivation in Iran is presently 12,157 hectares,� Valiollah Bani-Ameri, the executive manager of Greenhouse Expansion Project undertaken by the Agriculture Ministry.

The ministry plans to increase the area under greenhouse cultivation in Iran to more than 48,000 hectares by the end of the 20-Year Vision Plan (2005-25).

The ministry expects to annually produce 21 million tons of agro products in greenhouses when the project is completed. According to Bani-Ameri, Iran ranks second globally when it comes to expansion of greenhouse area after Mexico.