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A combination of rising food insecurity, collapsing livestock health, plans to cut millions from cash subsidies, and new admissions of entrenched oligarchic control is intensifying pressure on Iran’s already strained social and economic landscape. At the same time, persistent inflation and continued digital restrictions signal that the clerical regime is prioritizing political control and elite interests over public welfare. The convergence of these developments points not to isolated missteps, but to a governing system struggling to maintain basic stability.
Livestock Disease Linked to Unregulated Imports
On October 29, Ahmad Moghaddasi, head of the Cattle Breeders Association, warned that uncontrolled and unhygienic imports of live animals and meat have introduced a new African strain of foot-and-mouth disease into domestic herds. He stated that the outbreak has now reached the “heart of the country,” including Tehran and adjacent provinces, and is spreading rapidly.
“Come and see what is happening in the herds,” he said. “The animals are collapsing.”
He emphasized that the disease entered from countries “with no sanitary standards,” describing the strain as a “new African variant” now destroying livestock. He also noted that meat imported through northern neighbors had been diverted to Iraq after failing quality compliance there — raising concerns that contaminated product may have circulated domestically.
Producers argue this is the consequence of policy choices favoring imports over sustaining domestic agriculture. With rising feed costs and long-term underinvestment, breeders say their sector was already near collapse; the disease accelerates loss and threatens long-term protein security.
#Iran Regime’s Food Monopoly: How Three Oligarch Families Looted Billions While Iranians Go Hungryhttps://t.co/DWbAcci7q5
— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) October 6, 2025
Inflation and the Political Economy of Scarcity
The crisis unfolds amid ongoing inflation and contracting purchasing power. On October 28, the regime’s Statistical Center reported point-to-point inflation at 48.6%, with average household inflation at 38.9%. However, as with all official macroeconomic data in Iran, these figures must be treated with caution — the regime has a documented record of suppressing or altering economic indicators, and independent economists have long stated that real inflation is higher than published figures.
Even based on the regime’s own partial data, households are cutting meat, dairy, fruits, and vegetables — the exact pattern associated with rising malnutrition, declining physical resilience, and long-term public health deterioration. Rising livestock mortality now threatens further price spikes.
In parallel, state-linked economist Mahmoud Jamshasaz noted that Iran has earned roughly $1.7 trillion in oil revenue since 1979 yet failed to build sustainable infrastructure. He described a network of politically connected economic actors who dominate key markets — the so-called “sultans” of sectors including fuel, sugar, currency, and commodity imports — whose interests are tied directly to preserving the current political structure.
#Iranian Regime Officials Caught in Massive Corruption Scandal Over Gift Cardshttps://t.co/9M3p5c4GU6
— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) May 28, 2025
Planned Subsidy Cuts Risk Deepening Poverty
The government and parliament are now debating reducing cash subsidies for 15 to 27 million people, a shift that would sharply reduce household support at a time when purchasing power has already contracted. Labor Minister Ahmad Meydari acknowledged on October 28 that removing 27 million would be “difficult to justify,” but added that if the decision is made, “it will be executed.”
The poverty line has now risen to over six million tomans per person per month, according to the government’s own spokesperson — itself a conservative estimate. Donya-ye Eghtesad reports the poverty rate has reached approximately 36%, meaning more than one third of the population cannot meet basic caloric needs.
Plans to implement large-scale subsidy cuts under these conditions would push millions further below subsistence levels, accelerating already visible declines in nutrition and health access.
How Many #Iranians Live Below the #Poverty Line?https://t.co/fClcBw6aLX
— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) September 11, 2024
Internet Restrictions Signal Security Priorities
Meanwhile, the National Cyberspace Center has refused to lift filtering on Telegram, Instagram, and YouTube. For more than a year, government officials publicly suggested that restrictions were being reevaluated. State media reported on October 28 that those assurances have now effectively been abandoned.
The continuation of filtering limits commercial activity, suppresses independent communication networks, and reinforces reliance on state-controlled media channels. Despite public statements about “social cohesion,” the practical function of the policy is political control.
#Poverty by Design: How #Iran’s Rulers Keep the People Hungry and the Streets Quiethttps://t.co/0ZV46nr4CK
— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) March 25, 2025
A Governance Model Oriented Toward Self-Preservation
Taken together, these developments show a political economy structured around scarcity management rather than stabilization or recovery. The state continues to use imports to offset domestic production gaps, despite the rising public health risks. It signals willingness to cut household subsidies during the steepest decline in purchasing power in a decade. And it maintains digital restrictions despite their clear costs to economic activity.
What ties these decisions together is not policy inconsistency, but consistency in priorities:
- The preservation of elite power networks takes precedence over production, consumption, public health, and social welfare.
- The clerical regime is not attempting to solve the underlying crises. It is attempting to endure them — while shifting the cost downward.