Rafsanjan, a semiarid region in central Iran, is renowned for its high-quality pistachio production, generating nearly $1 billion annually. The Iranian government has provided energy and water subsidies over the past several decades, attracting producers to the area, where more than 30,000 people are directly involved in the production by owning or managing pistachio orchards. As a result, pistachio producers in Rafsanjan have long relied on groundwater as the only source of water for irrigation. According to reports from the late 1980s, the Rafsanjani family is said to "control" Iran's multimillion-dollar pistachio market centered around the town of Rafsanjan.
Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, former Iranian president and one of the most powerful members of the regime in Iran, was the head of the parliamentary speaker and had close ties to the
Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) construction firm, which built most of Iran's infrastructure, including dams. These dams were used to redirect water to the agricultural fields of high-ranking members of the regime, including the Rafsanjani family, resulting in a water mafia-like scenario. This is due to orchards being exempted from redistribution under the
Iranian Land Reform Programme of 1962, which sought to
abolish the feudal system and redistribute arable land from large landowners to smaller agricultural workers. At the end of the 80s, a survey done in two Rafsanjan villages revealed that villagers owned only about 17% of the water and cultivated land, while the rest belonged to a small number of absentee landlords.
Gender disparities During the same era, there was a shift in labor relations from the traditional
sharecropping contracts, which were prevalent throughout most of the Persian plateau, to wage labor. For pistachio cultivation, the new labor force was differentiated by skill and gender and was exclusively on a wage basis. The laborers, called “ghararis”, who were by definition male and highly skilled in irrigation work, which was an exclusively male task, constituted the "labor aristocracy." They were employed on a permanent basis with a monthly wage, a New Year bonus, and given a small plot of land free of charge with access to the landlord's irrigation water. On the other hand, female laborers engaged in harvest and post-harvest operations occupied the lowest position in the labor hierarchy. Their work was seasonal, and their labor remuneration was mostly based on a piece-rate basis, with payment made three to four months after finishing the work. Additionally, the spinning and weaving of cotton textiles, which used to be a traditional income-earning activity for women, had at the time been virtually wiped out due to competition with the cheap
synthetic fibers. ==Transport ==