People in Kurdistan Region ask daily why there are no local agricultural products. Why are foreign products cheaper than local ones when Kurdistan is an ideal place for various forms of agriculture due to its fruitful plains, plentiful water resources, vast razes, and favorable climate?

The region's Ministry of Agriculture is studying several plans to expand agriculture by restoring life to the countryside and encouraging farmers to return to their villages by providing them with pickup trucks to transport their products and building greenhouses; meanwhile, however, agriculture experts say the ministry is going about it all wrong.

Musa Muhammad , an expert in agriculture and a university economics teacher in Erbil city, said the government's plan to return villagers to their land won't work because farmers in Kurdistan don't have modern equipment or technology; the only way they can farm is by using the same techniques they used 50 years ago. He said agricultural lands should be given to the private sector and companies with modern equipment, then the companies can hire local manpower and farmers.

"In Turkey, a private company produces 60 tons of potatoes annually on a piece of land, while here our farmers on the same size of land can only produce 6 tons of potatoes because they do not have modern equipment or technology," said Muhammad.

As for supplying farmers with pickup trucks to transport their products to markets, Musa said private companies should be responsible for collecting, organizing, and transporting all farmers' products to the markets, because it is too difficult and a waste of time for the farmers to do so. Farmers should only have to focus on how to increase their products every year.

Muhammad said it was unnecessary to build greenhouses in the region in order to develop agriculture; it is too expensive and Kurdistan's land and weather are already naturally very good for agriculture.

Last week, the Ministry of Agriculture stated that they built 200 greenhouses this year for unique farmers, and it said the quality and quantity of the products of this year in these green houses were excellent, also it added that it is planning to reach the number of green houses in the region to 5000 by 2010.

"The government should encourage and support anyone who has idea and project; it should help farmers, organize them and give them technology and insurance of production," said Muhammad.

In the late 1990s, a lot of farmers abandoned their farms and villages and came to the cities. Faisal Muhammad said he worked very hard on his farm for one year, but at the end the product was not at all encouraging and he lost money. He decided to quit farming and move to Erbil city to work as a taxi driver.

Muhammad's case is typical of a lot of villagers who have abandoned their villages and moved to cities.

Also this year many farmers and villagers left their villages due to tension on Kurdistan border with Turkey and Iran, Turkey and Iran have constantly and randomly shelled the border areas and the shelling is continue.

Abdullah Suleiman, a farmer, said this year he worked six months with his family to plant cucumber and tomato in Choman area seven miles far from Iran but at the end he left all the cucumbers and tomatoes behind him, after Iranian artillery hit his farm and destroyed his house there.

The Ministry of Agriculture always encourages private sectors and foreign investors to invest in Kurdistan's agricultural field so that Kurdistan can become an agriculture exporter within 10 years, said Anwar Omar Qadir, the ministry's Director of Planning.
A French delegation of agriculture experts met this week with Kurdistan Agriculture Minister Abdul Aziz Tayyeb to study the possibility of planting grape orchards in the region; the minister told them that the region's land is appropriate for planting 82 different kinds of grapes.

The project of planting 400 olive orchards on 2,000 hectors started in Erbil governorate, and work is underway to build factories to produce olive oil.