Abadi is encouraging agricultural sector to step up

BAGHDAD / NINA / The Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi stressed on Thursday the importance of activating the role of the agricultural sector to meet the challenge of a global decline in oil prices and its negative impact on the financial budget. 

Abadi said during presiding over the meeting of the Supreme Committee for Agricultural Initiative, that "the breadth of agricultural areas represents a healthy phenomenon on the grounds that it provides many jobs and contribute positively to reduce dependence on imported agricultural products. 

Abadi outlined, according to a statement by his office today, that it is possible to increase agricultural production through a series of decisions that will contribute positively to the promotion of this important sector, stressing the importance of encouraging farms through what has been allocated for agriculture in the fiscal budget. 

Abadi also called for a quest to find additional resources for water and optimal use for them. / End

From the Encyclopedia of Nations:

Despite intermittent government efforts to develop the sector, agricultural production has always been a modest contributor to Iraq's economy, accounting for 7 percent of GDP prior to the 1980 Iran-Iraq war and 6 percent in 1993. Despite declining performance, however, the sector continues to employ almost one-third of the country's labor force . The agricultural sector employed 30 percent of the labor force in 1989, and although the number is believed to have declined as a result of the sector's declining performance, no hard figures are available to support this contention.

Iraq's arable land is estimated at 8 million hectares, comprising less than 15 percent of the country's total area. However, only 4 to 5 million hectares of this land is being cultivated. Arable land is mostly concentrated in the north and northeast, where winter crops—mainly wheat and barley—are grown, and in the valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.

The sector's contribution to the GDP has steadily declined since the early 1980s, despite repeated government efforts to boost agricultural production. Until the late 1980s, cultivable land was under the control of the state, the direct result of the land reforms begun in 1958. In 1988-89, in an effort to boost agricultural production, the state privatized agriculture, but the sector's weakness persisted. Further, the government continued to control the price of agricultural products, mainly to protect the urban consumer. Despite government efforts to encourage agricultural production after the Gulf War by raising the price of staple foods—especially of wheat, barley and rice—the labor-intensive sector remains in 2001 under-developed and inefficient, as a result of the high costs of energy, credit, and land and lack of investment. The problem is further aggravated by the lack of pesticides, fertilizers, and machinery. Further, competition from produce and agriculture products imported under the UN food-for-oil program, which allows the sale of a given amount of oil in return for basic foodstuffs and medicine, has also hurt the sector. In 2000, Iraq's farmers were also hit hard by the worst drought in a century. This drought devastated output and forced many farmers to ask the government to loan them the money to pay local banks back for funds they had borrowed to plant their crops, which in the summer of 2000 were failing.

Major agricultural products are cereals, including wheat and barley. Iraq is also a producer of dates, sheep and goat meat, chicken meat, and milk. Most agricultural activity is concentrated in the fertile lowlands in the Mesopotamian plains irrigated from the Tigris and the Euphrates. The Kurdish areas in the north, which have received minimal attention due to the conflict between the central government and the Kurds, remain underdeveloped and mostly dependent on rainwater. Agricultural production in Kurdish areas has improved under the UN sanctions regime, due to the distribution of fertilizers and spare parts by international agencies in those areas.



Read more: http://www.nationsencyclopedia.com/economies/Asia-and-the-Pacific/Iraq-AGRICULTURE.html#ixzz3PDxcTRql

As much as I mock the thought that agriculture is going to replace oil revenues, it does look like there are opportunities for growth in areas that Iraq still controls.  They appear to be using 3/5 of the arable land, so more land could be put into production.  There are certainly opportunities to put some jobless people to work.  Despite a recent drought, there are opportunities to irrigate more land.

It's possible to help.  I saw a 2012 report from the agricultural ministry targeting a plan to strategically increase crops.  I haven't found metrics that would validate any progress towards those goals, but would assume mixed results.  (The good news is that there are few suicide bombings out in the country)

Most current agricultural products are used for internal consumption except for apparently, dates.  Several articles mentioned dates as being Iraq's most important export.  Rice, wheat and other cereals seem to primarily reduce the need to import the products from other countries.  And import they do.

Wheat seems like the largest opportunity for growth with an eye to exporting.  And there are certainly markets which Iraq could compete with the US and Canada.  I don't know what the net income from the sale of wheat would be, but it would help in some fashion.

So...  to help Iraq get into a financial position to RV, we all need to start eating dates every day and build a market that puts money into their economy.