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Restoring the lost art of agriculture
By Ali S. Murad-in The Kurdish glob newspaper
The Kurdish Globe NO. 144 Jan. 30. 2008

The first step in starting 'an agricultural revolution' is to restore life to the countryside and encourage farmers to return to their villages
Thirty-eight-year-old merchant Massoud Hassan sells various types of cereals in his small store in Erbil city, some are products of villagers and others are imports from neighboring countries
Hassan's family originally worked as farmers in the village of Kandinawa near Kirkuk, but, unable to make a living as farmers, he and his five brothers left and settled in Erbil with their families.
"I cannot cultivate on my ancestral land and rely only on farming anymore; the situation is different now," he says. "You work hard but sometimes what you spend is more than what you earn."
When Hassan's father was still alive, approximately 300 families were living in their village, many of them farming and breeding animals, but now "no more than 20 families are living in the village."
Kurdish sources report that about 4,000 villages were destroyed during the former Ba'ath Regime. Cattle were killed, villages were burned, and thousands of villagers moved toward the cities.
According to statistics released in 1967 by the Iraqi government, around 66% of Kurdish people were farmers and relied on their own productions, even supporting the rest of the country. But the Ba'ath Regime began its brutal operation of genocide and insurgency against Kurds, and after 20 years, in 1987, statistics proved that Kurds' agricultural production rates fell to 16 percent.
Another wave of immigration from villages to cities started after 1991 when Kurds were suffering from double sanctions imposed upon them by the United Nations and Saddam's government. During the UN-sponsored oil-for-food program, many villagers left for cities, dealing the last blow to agriculture in Kurdistan Region. Under the oil-for-food program, the Iraqi government was importing food items from abroad, crippling the agriculture sector at home.
People were forced to find jobs in different government establishments, and without a vibrant agriculture sector, the region changed into a large consumer of foreign products.
Despite the accessibility of security, water resources, fertile land, and a favorable climate compared to the rest of Iraq, the Kurdistan government has been unable to convince farmers to go back to their villages.
"Kurdistan's food security is threatened," said Sherzad Omar, dean of Salahaddin University's College of Agriculture in Erbil. "Our markets are now full of fruits, vegetables, and various food items imported from neighboring countries, and they can stop exporting their food products whenever they want."
Omar believes that the government needs to rebuild villages and provide agricultural machinery support to villagers. It can also solve the problem by supporting private sectors and making small factories. Cultivators need to be convinced that they would be supported by the government.
Most Kurdistan villages have been reconstructed but people show little interest in returning. There are 5,132 villages in Kurdistan Region; with the exception of 662, the rest are habitable.
"Encouraging the villagers is not solely a duty of the ministries of Agriculture, Planning, Education, Health, etc., but they themselves should rebuild the villages," said Anwar Omar Qadir, planning director of the KRG Ministry of Agriculture.
Kurdistan's government plans to grow agriculture and animal husbandry through the region within five years. It is enlisting farmers, distributing seeds, and providing them with rich land and adequate water.
The region lacks enough wheat and has become too dependent on imported wheat.
Erbil province alone requires approximately 16,000 tons of wheat per month. About 25% of that is supplied by farmers, and 75% is provided by the Iraqi central government.
"Sometimes we can't buy farmers' harvest; they ask for more money compared with the price set by the central government," assistant director of Erbil's silo, Delsahd Fakher Wasman, told The Globe. Many farmers would like to sells their grains to silos in other cities outside Kurdistan Region in places such as Shargat and Tooz Khurmatu.
The KRG hopes to be self-sufficient by 2010. It expects to produce 500,000 tons of wheat, 60,000 tons of olive oil, 77,000 tons of chicken meat, vegetables, fruits, honey, and also to open an agriculture bank in Kurdistan within 3 to 5 years.
Many believe the first step in starting "an agricultural revolution" is to restore life to the countryside and encourage farmers to return to their villages.