Shahpour Alaei-Moghaddam, an official from Iran’s Ministry of Agriculture , stated that out of the 4.5 million farmers in the country, 70 percent do not even have basic reading and writing skills.
Alaei-Moghaddam, the Deputy for Management Development and Human Resources at the Ministry of Agriculture, emphasized in an interview with the state-run ILNA news agency—published on Thursday, January 16—that the low literacy levels among the agricultural workforce make it difficult to conduct educational programs, transfer research findings, and implement agricultural extension initiatives.
According to Alaei-Moghaddam, only 0.8 percent of Iranian farmers are university graduates and participate in the agricultural sector through cooperatives, associations, organizations, and knowledge-based companies.
The agriculture ministry official also pointed to a decline in personnel at rural agricultural service centers, stating that while the average number of employees at these centers used to be 12 per center, it has now dropped to fewer than five.
In Iran, five nationwide agricultural censuses have been conducted in the years 1973, 1988, 1993, 2003, and 2014.
According to the latest agricultural census in 2014, among nearly 4 million agricultural landowners across the country—90 percent of whom operated in rural areas—approximately 1.4 million, or 34 percent, were classified as illiterate.
The latest nationwide agricultural census began on November 2, 2024, conducted by Iran’s Statistics Center, and was scheduled to last approximately 45 days.
The Statistics Center has stated that the collected data is “confidential” and “cannot be published,” but once the results are processed, the final information will be provided to the relevant authorities.
Some reports indicate that 5.2 million agricultural landowners are active in Iran, but the Statistics Center reports this number as 4 million.
However, the illiteracy crisis in Iran is not limited to agricultural landowners, and national statistics do not present a better picture. According to a report published by the state-run Ham-Mihan newspaper in September 2024, data and studies indicate that in Iran as a whole, five out of every 20 people are illiterate.
Earlier, EcoIran, a statistical analysis news platform, reported—citing the “latest published statistics”—that the illiteracy rate in 2021 was 12 percent, meaning that 12 out of every 100 Iranians lacked basic literacy.
According to this report, out of Iran’s 31 provinces, only four have a single-digit illiteracy rate.
