The Iranian government is planning to buy water from neighbouring countries in response to a nationwide drought.

“If a country is willing to sell water, we will buy it,” said Energy Minister Abbas Aliabadi, the Fars news agency reported on Wednesday.

The import of products that consume a lot of water is also on the agenda.

Most of Iran’s neighbours are also suffering from drought and water shortages, including Iraq, Afghanistan and the Pakistani border regions.

Armenia in the north, on the other hand, has comparatively larger water reserves.

Iran is one of the driest countries in the world. In recent years, experts have observed a significant decline in rainfall, while droughts and other extreme weather events are on the rise.

Experts have been warning for years that agriculture in Iran is suffering from misguided incentives.

Instead of adapting to the water-scarce conditions, particularly thirsty crops have been subsidised.

Traditional farming methods have been displaced with fatal long-term consequences for soils and reserves. Thousands of families have left rural areas.

Iran is experiencing its sixth consecutive year of drought, UN expert Kaveh Madani wrote in Forbes business magazine.

He believes climate change is partly to blame, but years of mismanagement are also a key factor.

“What we are experiencing today is no longer a water crisis, but ‘water insolvency’ a failure of the system that has extracted more water over a long period of time than nature could replenish,” he wrote in the article.

Madani called for a rethink and radical savings in agriculture, which accounts for a good 90 per cent of water consumption in Iran. (dpa/NAN)