Annually 150 thousand tons of grapes in the raisin production hub of East Azerbaijan
Faraj Elahi, while visiting raisin and dried fruit processing centers, added: Bonab city is the second pole of production of this product after the owners of 75,000 tons of grapes, which is mostly consumed fresh due to its high quality.
He pointed out: Bonab city has a high capacity to buy grapes produced from the surrounding cities as well as West Azerbaijan, Shiraz and Takestan provinces, and the grapes purchased in more than 500 grape processing units are turned into raisins.
The governor of Bonab, referring to the current recession in the purchase and sale of raisins in world markets, expressed concern about the low price of grapes compared to the cost price and said: most of the grapes produced in the city and even neighboring cities are left to farmers due to low prices.
Faraj Elahi considered the improvement of production quality, customer-friendly packaging and the use of appropriate technical technology to be effective in capturing global markets for raisins and asked the producers to pay attention to these issues.
The governor of Bonab said: Bonab city has gained a good market in the world arenas by exporting 30,000 tons of raisins to foreign countries last year.
He added: According to the development document of Bonab city, by the end of 1396, the city’s exports in the field of nuts should reach 37,000 tons.
It should be noted that in addition to the global slump in raisin sales, recent rains in the province have reduced the quality of grapes and producers are reluctant to buy damaged grapes so that the current price of grapes is much lower than the cost price. This has caused concern among gardeners in the south of the province.