The Iranian government supports the agricultural sector in a number of ways. Like many other countries, the agricultural sector is heavily subsidised by the Iranian government. Each year, the government guarantees the purchase of wheat from the farmers at a pre-specialized price to protect them from seasonality in the market prices. The government also pays a wide range of subsidies for improvements in production methods, the use of fertilisers and pesticides, and agricultural research. Nonetheless, there still exist considerable opportunities to improve efficiency in the agricultural sector. For instance, only 10% of farms are equipped with modern irrigation facilities and the rest are still farmed using legacy methods.