Printer-friendly VersionThe Kurdish Globe
Due to political unrest in the '90s and the economic mayhem of the last decade, agriculture and farming industry have been sidelined in Kurdistan, given way to a growing import of foreign goods. KRG now says it is optimistic the country not only can be self-sufficient, but also export its agricultural products.
Kurdistan Regional Government's (KRG) Ministry of Agriculture announced its 5-year strategic plan, which is aimed at improving the farming sector to a point where the region can be self-sufficient in all agricultural and food products. The plan was announced in a conference held in Erbil, January 27, 2009, attended by the KRG Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani, KRG and Iraqi Ministers of Agriculture, several other KRG ministers, academics and university professors, representatives from a number of private sector companies working in the field of agriculture, as well as a large number of experts in the field.
"We held a conference on agriculture when we prepared the plan, aiming to attract the specialists and experienced people in the agricultural sector before implementing the plan, and also to know about the opinions of companies, organizations and other countries in order to make sure if we can succeed or not, because the plan starts to be implemented in 2009 and the specialists believe that agricultural sector is in need of a strategic plan, without which we can do nothing," said the general manager of Planning in the KRG Ministry of Agriculture, Anwar Omar Qadir.
The general manager of forests in Kurdistan Region, Hussein Hama Karim, shed light on the plans concerning the revival of forests and said it was a good start that everybody thinks the agriculture sector is the basic infrastructure, and this is through setting a five year plan for which a number of conferences have been held. He said there is much to do in order to protect the forests after all the damage throughout the history.
Karim suggests that farmers and villagers, who have immigrated to the cities and are now employed by the public sector, should be sent back to their farms and villages and still have their salaries. This can encourage them to work on their farms.
Regarding the plan, Karim showed his optimism about it and said that previous plans did not succeed simply due to the lack of resources and budget shortages, but those problems are less likely to be as serious for the new plan.
Another challenge for the plan is legal issues related to the agricultural lands in the region, which have been directly addressed by two resolutions decreed by the parliament.
"The first law (No. 32 of 2007) is about using the agricultural lands ? The second law (No. 1 in 2008) is to give possession of agricultural lands to the farmers especially those who have contracts and are currently working on them," said the general manager of Agricultural Lands, Galawej Muheddin. She stated that US$17.5 million have been earmarked for these two laws within five years.
On the other hand, Dr. Raf'at Hidayat, the head of Veterinary and Animal Resources, thinks that the aim of setting plans for the veterinary is to have domestic animal resources. He said even if there is a need for foreign animals, one can bring sheep and goats and breed them in the Kurdistan Region, particularly those animals which can be bred within the Kurdistan Region weather and climate.
"We hope we can raise the level of domestic products from 20% to 40% in 2009, provided that we have the budget. We might also be able to reach 100% within three years, because population rate is increasing and the plan has taken the population rate into consideration. We need the farmers back to the villages and technology should serve them in a scientific and modern way," reported to Dr. Hidayat, "If 3% of Kurdistan Region population work in the agricultural sectors, it means we can rely totally on domestic products and we can have agricultural products for 40 million people."
Hence, if the plan is to be implemented as it is and in time, Kurdistan would shift from importing food to exporting it. And yet, if this is simultaneous with improving production capacity in other sectors such as industry, the region can be a strong economy in the near future and the welfare of its people is expected to rise to a high standard.