Modern agricultural projects in south aim to boost production

Authorities in the southern Iraqi province of Basra have launched two projects to help boost agricultural production and quality, after years of neglect and desertification in the region saw crop yields plummet. The projects, which are being funded through the Multinational Forces Division (MFD) and coordinated by the Directorate of Agriculture (DA) in Basra, involve creating shelter belts to protect crops and researching new ways of producing better quality tomatoes. Around US $27,000 will be spent on fertilisers, seeds and workers' wages. Although a small amount of money, a MFD spokesperson said that they hoped the projects would be successful in showing local farmers the benefits of shelter belts and of using modern methods of plant nursery to increase crop yield and quality. During Saddam Hussein's regime the agricultural sector was severely neglected, Ali Hassan Al Mar'ashy, head of the DA in Basra, told IRIN. Added to this, decades of war caused extensive infrastructure damage, in particular during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war. At the same time wind and sand storm erosion have resulted in widespread desertification, which in turn destroyed fragile micro-climates affecting crop yield and quality. Basra was once home to one-third of palm trees in Iraq, almost 9 million out of 13 million palm trees were destroyed during years of conflict. Now, in part because of the poor security situation in the country, there are limited resources to help with rebuilding the sector, Al-Mar'ashy said, including a very tight budget for his organisation. People are still suffering from a lack of food and many items such as grain need to be imported from neighbouring countries. "We have thousands of poor farmers. Due to the deteriorated security situation in the country, we are not working with NGOs on developing agriculture in the south. The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) office here in Basra has (only) a few local employees because of the concerns over the security situation. It has even reduced the numbers of farmers who take seeds. FAO only distributes 240 kg of grain seeds to 940 farmers' families [in the Basra region]," the DA director said. But he added that the DA was hoping to start working soon with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in a couple of projects to grow olives and produce poultry. The first project which the DA is piloting is the establishment of "shelter belts" to protect crops from wind and turbulence. This will be done by planting trees and shrubs that would provide a barrier against the weather. The second scheme involves funding for a research programme into the best varieties of tomato to grow in the Basra area and better methods of propagating tomato plants. Instead of the traditional way to sow by making a series of furrows and scattering the seeds, the new project is setting up a tomato nursery using trays of individual seed pots, which are propagated in plastic tunnels. Inside the tunnels the seeds are germinated and watered in a controlled environment until they have grown into hardy plants ready to be moved to open fields. The idea is to be able to sell tomatoes across Iraq as in the past when Basra provided the whole country with the crop from December until May every year, head of agricultural engineering at the directory Maha Yousif told IRIN. "We were used to subsidising either the seeds or the machinery during the former regime," she said. "Now, subsidies have been lifted and fertiliser prices have increased. The private sector increased the costs of seeds among other things. Now a packet of seeds for tomatoes costs US $33 instead of $24 but the qualities are better and they don't spoil so quickly." Last year, sowing was disrupted after the main company producing seeds was looted during the war to topple Saddam Hussein, Yousif said. But she was hopeful that these projects could now help farmers gain better quality plants. Also, pilot projects are currently running around the southern towns of AzZubyr and Safwan involving 2,000 local farmers. These projects will eventually be responsible for planting a total of 225,000 trees. Five species have been identified which are resistant to both the local climate and pests.