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Established in 2006 as a Community of Reality

Welcome to the Neno's Place!

Neno's Place Established in 2006 as a Community of Reality


Neno

I can be reached by phone or text 8am-7pm cst 972-768-9772 or, once joining the board I can be reached by a (PM) Private Message.

Established in 2006 as a Community of Reality

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Established in 2006 as a Community of Reality

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    The specter of desertification threatens the rest of Iraq's agricultural lands and livestock

    Rocky
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    • Post n°1

    The specter of desertification threatens the rest of Iraq's agricultural lands and livestock Empty The specter of desertification threatens the rest of Iraq's agricultural lands and livestock

    Post by Rocky Thu Jul 08, 2021 8:22 am

      The specter of desertification threatens the rest of Iraq's agricultural lands and livestock

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    Every year, the impact of climate change increases during the hot Iraqi summer season on farmers and livestock breeders, who find themselves forced to migrate and sell their lands, after a large number of their livestock died and buildings swallowed up the remaining arable land.
    In this country with a harsh desert climate, even before the difficult climatic changes, the marshes in the south were a haven for herds of buffaloes that sought refuge in their fresh waters for protection from temperatures exceeding fifty in summer.

    In the far south of Iraq, the Shatt al-Arab, Iraq's only outlet to the sea, was a paradise for navigators amid the lush palm groves.

    The situation has become almost tragic today. The scarcity of water in the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, especially because of the dams built by Turkey and Iran, and their sewers filled with a huge amount of waste from all the cities they cross, has caused a disaster in the Shatt al-Arab, where salinity began to seep into agricultural lands and kill crops, as is the case with Produced by the farmer Rafik Tawfik.

    Tawfiq complains from Basra in southern Iraq that "everything we plant dies. Palm trees, alfalfa, which are usually plants that tolerate salty water, all die."

    In the past years, the salinity of the water caused the conversion of thousands of hectares of land to wasteland, and the admission of 100,000 people to hospitals in the summer of 2018.

    Agricultural engineer Alaa Al-Badran from this oil province explains that "this year, for the first time since April and the start of the agricultural season The salt water has increased.

    - Exodus to escape thirst -
    The salinity of the water, coupled with the extreme rise in temperatures, is a fatal blow to the Iraqi agricultural sector, which accounts for 5% of the gross domestic product and employs 20% of the total labor force in the country.

    However, it is already a weak sector, as it does not provide more than half of the country's agricultural needs, while the markets are flooded with agricultural imports of higher quality.

    In total, "seven million Iraqis" out of 40 million were affected by "drought and forced displacement."

    In the Chabayish in southern Iraq, the area within the Iraqi Marshes and historically famous for its water bodies since the days of the Sumerians, the farmer Ali Jaseb has been plagued by constant wandering. He has to travel, every season, huge distances to provide his buffaloes with a suitable environment for the production of milk, which is the only income for his family.

    "Every two or three months, we have to move to find water," the man says. "If the buffaloes drink salt water, they get poisoned, stop producing milk and die."

    The drought of rivers and marshes has become clear to the naked eye and is accelerating steadily in a country that has witnessed successive wars and crises for 40 years, which severely damaged the infrastructure, so Iraq lacks the ingredients to adapt to an ever-increasingly harsh climate. According to the United Nations, only 3.5% of agricultural land in Iraq is equipped with irrigation systems.

    This situation is worrying Raad Hamid, who is also a livestock breeder.

    "Just ten days ago, this land was muddy, there was water and vegetables," says the man, standing on cracked and scorched earth by the strong sun.

    Exile -
    This is only the beginning. In the coming years, the repercussions of climate change will intensify, as the Iraqi president wrote: “With the highest rates of population growth in Iraq, data indicate that the country’s population will double from 38 million today to 80 million by 2050, and this doubles the economic and social risks of climate change.” climate if left unaddressed.

    This is in addition to a two-degree increase in temperature and a decrease in precipitation by 9% by 2050, according to Saleh.

    In the Khanaqin region in eastern Iraq bordering Iran, 45-year-old farmer Abdul Razzaq Qader bemoans his land and his crops.

    "Four years passed without rain," he says, on his 38 hectares of wheat field.

    Abdul Razzaq is seriously considering giving up farming and working as a construction worker, as did the majority of farmers in his area who abandoned their fields due to bad conditions and changed their professions.

    Desertification has affected "69 percent of Iraq's agricultural lands," according to the Director of the Planning Department at the Department of Forestry and Combating Desertification, agricultural engineer Sarmad Kamel, to AFP.

    In the face of drought, desertification and the steady increase in population, agricultural land is the biggest victim.

    Economist Ahmed Saddam explains: "On the one hand, the demand for housing is increasing. As for agriculture, it no longer produces a large income."

    In Basra Governorate, where he lives, land prices have reached "between 20 and 120 million dinars," or about 27 thousand to 82 thousand US dollars.

    For the farmers, these are “huge sums that they have never earned, so they sold their land,” according to the expert, adding that by doing so, “10 percent of agricultural land turns into residential neighborhoods every year.”

    This phenomenon will accelerate the exile of the people of the Iraqi countryside in their country due to the disturbances in the economic, social and climatic balance.
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