UN agency warns irrigation problems could affect Iraq’s grain crop in south

Although at least one-third of Iraq's critical spring grain crop appears to have emerged unscathed from the recent conflict, the fate of the bulk of the winter crop of cereals, some 1.2 million tons of sorely needed wheat and barley, remains in doubt, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) warned today.

Basing its preliminary assessment on reports received from national staff in Iraq, the FAO reports that in the three northern governorates of Erbil, Dohuk and Sulaimaniyah, most farmers were not displaced during the conflict and are thus well placed to begin harvesting their crops in a few weeks. But in the south, where crops depend on irrigation, loss of power to run pumping networks may cause problems.

The northern governorates are expected to produce between 30 and 35 per cent of this year's total estimated crop of 1.7 million tons of grain, the agency said in a statement in Rome. If the harvest there proceeds on schedule, it will help alleviate food shortages by producing more than 500,000 tons of wheat and barley, enough to fill at least 20,000 truckloads that would otherwise have to be imported.

But the situation is less clear in the centre and south, especially in grain growing regions south of Baghdad between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, where another third of the cereal crop is cultivated. While still too early to predict the loss of the Euphrates valley crop of wheat, barley and rice, there may well be difficulties, according to FAO.

Unlike the rain-fed northern crop, the south depends entirely on irrigation, which is in turn heavily reliant on electricity and fuel supply to run the pumping networks. There are similar difficulties with the spring crop of vegetables in the south, also entirely dependent on irrigation.