Wheat, Producer Price
FAO publishes this commodity's food-balance elements in two domains with different methodologies (historic 1961-2013 vs current 2010-2023); they disagree materially where they overlap, so both are kept as separate labelled series rather than spliced.
Event_Log
··19721972-74 world food crisisCorrelationExpected causation
Poor harvests in the Soviet Union, South Asia and the Sahel combine with the USSR's massive surprise 1972 US grain purchase ("the Great Grain Robbery") and, from late 1973, the oil price shock's impact on fertilizer and transport costs to roughly triple world grain prices by 1974; the resulting global food-price and supply crisis hits food-importing developing countries hardest and prompts the 1974 World Food Conference, with farm prices not fully retreating until a 1975 US-Soviet grain agreement.
Why this link: The 1972-74 spike in world grain prices, driven by poor harvests, the Soviet Union's 1972 grain purchases, and rising fertilizer and transport costs after the oil shock, pushed up international wheat and cereal prices that fed through to Iran's domestic prices for these staples.
Caveat: Iran's domestic wheat price was also shaped by its own guaranteed-purchase and subsidy policies of the period, so the global crisis's pass-through to the domestic price series is only partial and hard to isolate precisely.
Lag: Effects concentrated in 1972-1974.Source: US Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service — "Agricultural Commodity Price Spikes in the 1970s and 1990s"
Related_Laws
Laws related to this measure. Correlation = how closely this law tracks this measure's story. Expected causation = how strongly we would expect it to have moved the line. Neither is a claim of proof.
1967CorrelationExpected causationAllocation of 50 Million Rials in Extraordinary Credit for Building Metal Silos to Store This Year's Purchased Wheat, Placed at the Disposal of the National Cereals Organization
Approved by the Council of Ministers on 21 Mordad 1346 (1967), this decree allocates 50 million rials in extraordinary credit, funded from wheat sales and export proceeds, to the National Cereals Organization for building metal silos to store the current year's purchased wheat.
Why this link: A 1967 emergency credit line of 50 million rials to the state Grain Organization funded that year's wheat procurement, part of the guaranteed-purchase-price mechanism that underpins Iran's wheat price and production.
Caveat: This is one small, one-off top-up to a recurring procurement budget; it cannot be separated from the broader guaranteed-price program or from weather-driven harvest swings.
Lag: Working-capital effect on procurement is immediate within the 1967 crop year.1975CorrelationExpected causationAct Extending the Livestock and Meat Distribution Disruption Penalty Act to Wheat, Flour, Sugar, Rice and Oil
Passed in 1975, this law extends the criminal penalties of the 1974 Act on Punishing Disruption of Livestock and Meat Supply to anyone who obstructs the supply and distribution of wheat, flour, sugar, rice, cooking oil and other government-designated staple foods, or causes their scarcity or price rises.
Why this link: Extends criminal penalties for disrupting the supply and distribution of wheat, flour, sugar and rice (and cooking oil), a direct instrument of the state's food price-control and rationing system during the 1970s inflation surge.
Caveat: Price-control enforcement suppresses recorded prices administratively rather than through market forces, and black-market prices for these staples often diverged from official figures, so the law's effect on the charted series may overstate genuine price stability.
Lag: Immediate, as the law was an enforcement escalation of an existing price-control regime.1989CorrelationExpected causationAct Amending the Guaranteed Purchase of Essential Agricultural Products Act of 1989
Passed in 1993, this law extends the list of staple crops covered by the 1989 Guaranteed Purchase Act to include raisins, dates, dried fruit, citrus, apples, pomegranates, figs, livestock products and silk cocoons.
Why this link: Amended Iran's guaranteed-purchase-price law for essential agricultural commodities, the legal basis under which the government sets and pays farmers a fixed annual procurement price for wheat and other staple crops, a direct and continuing price-support instrument.
Caveat: Guaranteed prices interact with world price movements, input-cost inflation and exchange-rate pass-through, so the amendment's precise share of any given year's realized procurement price cannot be fully isolated from these other forces.
Lag: Price effects are visible each subsequent crop year as the annually-announced guaranteed price is set.1989CorrelationExpected causationGuaranteed Purchase of Essential Agricultural Products Act
Passed in 1989, this law requires the government to guarantee and announce a minimum purchase price each farming year for staple agricultural products such as wheat, rice, barley, cotton and oilseeds, later extended to raisins, dates, citrus and livestock products, in order to support farm incomes and stabilize production.
Why this link: This law establishes the state's guaranteed-purchase-price mechanism for basic agricultural products; wheat is its flagship crop, and the government's announced procurement price is the direct policy input behind the guaranteed wheat price series and a major floor for market wheat prices.
Caveat: Guaranteed prices are set annually by government decision under this framework law, so year-to-year levels reflect changing policy choices, input costs and inflation rather than the 1989 law's original text alone.
Lag: Annual, set before each harvest season.2001CorrelationExpected causationExecutive Bylaw No. 19345/T24880H of the Act on Compensation for Damages and Prevention of Drought-Related Harm
Approved in 2001, this bylaw set up drought-relief funding by allocating a share of national development budgets and mandatory levies on profitable state companies and banks, channeling billions of rials to the Agricultural Bank for subsidized loans, to the crop insurance fund, and to direct compensation and infrastructure grants (irrigation canals, wells, water reservoirs) for farmers, ranchers and provinces hit by drought.
Why this link: This 2001 regulation set terms for compensating farmers for drought damage and covering drought-prevention costs, a direct farm-support instrument affecting crop output and farmer income in drought years.
Caveat: Crop yields are dominated by actual rainfall and irrigation availability; compensation payments cushion farmer income but do not directly restore lost output, so attribution to production/yield series is moderate at best.
Lag: Same growing season to 1 year.2005CorrelationExpected causationAct Adding Two Notes to the Guaranteed Purchase of Essential Agricultural Products Act of 1989
Passed in 2005, this law amends the 1989 Guaranteed Purchase of Essential Agricultural Products Act by requiring the government to raise the guaranteed purchase price of staple crops each farming year by at least the rate of inflation reported by the Central Bank, applied retroactively to the 2004-2005 crop year.
Why this link: The guaranteed-purchase-price regime this law amends covers all 'basic' agricultural crops, not just wheat, so it shapes producer prices across the guaranteed-purchase basket.
Caveat: Coverage and the specific crops included in the guaranteed-purchase list vary by year and are set by separate annual government decisions, so the link to any single crop's price series is indirect.
Lag: Within the same crop year2012CorrelationExpected causationExecutive Bylaw of Article 33 of the Agricultural and Natural Resources Productivity Act
Issued in 2012, this bylaw sets the rules for trading guaranteed-price agricultural products on Iran's commodity exchange, defining the guaranteed price as the minimum producer payment set by the cabinet, and has the government cover the gap between the exchange price and the guaranteed price for approved crops.
Why this link: Wheat and barley are the flagship crops covered by Iran's guaranteed-purchase-price system that this bylaw operationalizes, giving it a real but partial channel into observed farm-gate prices.
Caveat: Farm-gate prices also reflect input costs, exchange-rate pass-through and global grain prices, which typically dominate the guaranteed floor's effect.
2020CorrelationExpected causationRuling No. 535 of the General Board of the Administrative Court of Justice [...] Resolution No. 24 of the Golestan Province Wheat, Flour and Bread Working Group
This ruling by the General Board of the Administrative Court of Justice addresses a resolution of the Golestan province wheat, flour and bread working group.
Why this link: A 2020 Administrative Justice Court ruling on Golestan province's wheat/flour/bread coordination workgroup, part of the provincial-administrative machinery that operationalizes Iran's regulated wheat-to-bread supply chain that the guaranteed purchase price series tracks nationally.
Caveat: This is a narrow provincial administrative dispute, not the national price-setting instrument itself; it does not set or move the guaranteed procurement price directly.