Iraq’s Basra loses half of its arable land (‘the Paradise of Aden’ turning into desert)

[sabra]

Source: Azzaman (Iraq Daily)

The southern Iraqi city of Basra, known for its extensive arable land dotted with tens of thousands of farms, risks turning into desert, a senior agricultural official said.

Amer Salman, who heads the Agriculture Department in the Province of Basra of which the city of Basra is the provincial capital, urged the central government to extend a helping hand “before it is too late.” “I urge the federal government to allocate an emergency grant in order to save the (agricultural) sector,” he said. Otherwise, he added, “There will be no cultivation and agriculture in Basra for the winter season.”

Salman blamed insufficient water flow from the country’s sole rivers the Tigris and Euphrates as well as the agricultural policies pursued since the 2003-U.S. invasion.

...

Basra was once part of what historians called ‘the Paradise of Aden’ as the city was surrounded by a sea of date palm trees orchards and farms.

There used to be up to 30 million date palm trees in Basra.

But Salman said the number of orchards has fallen to 2500 from 5000 in the past few years.

Read more: http://www.azzaman.com/english/index.asp?fname=news/2009-09-01/kurd.htm

[Cassandra]

1. Which "agricultural policies "?

Monsanto?

[Xithras]

2. Probably the flooding of the marshes.

Since the 1970's, and accellerating in the mid-90's, Iraq began diverting water from the southern marshes to the fields and farms around southern Iraq for agriculture. This was done as much to punish the Marsh Arabs as it was to actually grow more food, and is internationally considered to be one of the top-10 environmental crimes of the last half century.

When the U.S. invaded, the Marsh Arabs saw an opportunity to restore their homeland and blew up the dikes and levees holding back the water. The water rushed in, much of the swamp has grown back, and the Marsh Arabs are moving back into their homeland.

While that's great for the marsh dwellers, it has royally screwed the farmers who have been depending on that water.

[Igel]

3. Messier.

There's a bit of a drought, first. So cities are taking relatively more water.

Syria and Turkey also aren't kind to Iraq's water needs. A lack of formal, enforceable treaties on water use is to blame for that.

In fact, in the last month or two the Marsh Arabs got into the news again because the restored habitat is drying up. The Marsh Arabs are moving away from their homeland again.

Iraqi agriculture also used to be tightly supervised. Part of the supervision was just plain central control for the sake of central control--the government bought all the food, after all. Some also made sure that certain important foods were grown (for feeding the population or for export); but some control was also environmental. Since 2003 there's been a bit of chaos, so agriculture hasn't been supervised very much.

Then there are the date palm groves. Iraq used to export a lot of dates. It was a cash crop. Since 2003 exports plummeted and farmers needed to grow something, so they moved away from dates. Palm trees have an advantage over a lot of other crops--they take less water and reduce erosion. Chop them down, plant veggies, and you need more water (and have more drought-prone crops), and you lose more soil.

[Joanne98]

4. I thought Saddam Hussein was the one cutting off the water. Another MSM LIE!