The Challenges and Opportunities of Agricultural Development in Iraqi Kurdistan

In recent years, things have been easy for the agriculture sector around the entire gulf region. The increased urbanization, high population and water scarcity pose a great threat to maintaining production and food security. It's no doubt agriculture is a top contributor to driving global environmental change. But if the new changes start affecting its growth, it may also affect many livelihoods that depend on agriculture in the Middle East. Iraq is one of the rapidly developing countries in the Middle East but is facing challenging situations that are impacting food production. The new changes such as urbanization and population growth are the main cause of weak domestic food supply bases, and this is leading to food insecurity in the region, changing the attention to food imports.

While Iraq is trying to deal with the issue of food insecurity, corruption cases are reported in almost every sector. The recent corruption allegations touch the Korek's top officials regarding fraudulent involvement that has been filed by the French Orange Company. While very small percentage of corruption has played part in dwindling of agriculture growth, here are other things that have contributed to its failure.

Food Challenges

One challenge in Iraq is biophysical constraints on food production, such as natural resources that are contributing to Iraq food insecurity plus infuriating the country and regional tensions.  In 1989, the cropland was estimated to be 0.05 KM2, but starting in 1990, the cropland averaged around 0.00025 km2, which is less 200 times. The growth and productivity of cropland have been largely affected by changes in climatic variability and soil fertility. Also, the country and international politics have played a role, especially those coming from upstream politics through the use of powers over Trans boundary-waters since it affects the flow of water to countries situated downstream.

The area of Kurdistan has, for years, been affected by political conflict and war for almost 40 years. It is such a conflict that destroyed the social well-being of Iraq citizens and accelerated less development in the agriculture sector. For many years Iraq has relied on agriculture before the discovery of oil back in the 1930s. Due to the discovery and rise of oil revenue, urbanization started getting momentum, adding up to population increase. These new changes pushed agriculture away, and in 1960 the demand for food was higher than the supply and to fill the deficit, the country was forced to import food.

Effect of War

In 1980, Iraq started a war with Iran that lasted for eight years, and that affected the agriculture sector more. The war consumed a lot of Iraq resources, which got nasty in the end as the government carried a genocide campaign referred to as 'Anfal' by killing Kurdish peshmerga militia for supporting Iran. That war destroyed agricultural land and forced many people to move away from the villages to urban centers.

The Kurdish people who were instrumental in keeping the country fed through agricultural products shifted from being producers to consumers. Instead of the Kurdish people growing food, they were changed by the circumstances to rely on imported food. When the country was started to resume a normal life without war, Iraq, through the then-president Saddam Hussein, invaded Kuwait, and the international community intervened imposing heavy sanctions on the country, and that was the last powerful blow to the agriculture.

Various attempts to salvage agriculture have not been successful. Some of the challenges affecting agriculture revival are land becoming less productive, and for those farming small-scale farming, slowly losing the desire to continue. Although some organization has tried intervening to work with the locals, still they face the challenge of rural residents preferring urban lifestyle due to easy access of better services.

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