$Unique_ID{COW01819} $Pretitle{231} $Title{Iraq Chapter 3C. Agriculture} $Subtitle{} $Author{Robert Scott Mason} $Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army} $Subject{land production government iraq percent water hectares euphrates tons total} $Date{1989} $Log{Figure 7.*0181901.scf } Country: Iraq Book: Iraq, A Country Study Author: Robert Scott Mason Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army Date: 1989 Chapter 3C. Agriculture [See Figure 7.: Land Use.] Since the beginning of recorded time, agriculture has been the primary economic activity of the people of Iraq. In 1976, agriculture contributed about 8 percent of Iraq's total GDP, and it employed more than half the total labor force. In 1986, despite a ten-year Iraqi investment in agricultural development that totaled more than US$4 billion, the sector still accounted for only 7.5 percent of total GDP, a figure that was predicted to decline. In 1986 agriculture continued to employ a significant portion--about 30 percent--of Iraq's total labor force. Part of the reason the agricultural share of GDP remained small was that the sector was overwhelmed by expansion of the oil sector, which boosted total GDP. Large year-to-year fluctuations in Iraqi harvests, caused by variability in the amount of rainfall, made estimates of average production problematic, but statistics indicated that the production levels for key grain crops remained approximately stable from the 1960s through the 1980s, with yield increasing while total cultivated area declined. Increasing Iraqi food imports were indicative of agricultural stagnation. In the late 1950s, Iraq was self-sufficient in agricultural production, but in the 1960s it imported about 15 percent of its food supplies, and by the 1970s it imported about 33 percent of its food. By the early 1980s, food imports accounted for about 15 percent of total imports, and in 1984, according to Iraqi statistics, food imports comprised about 22 percent of total imports. Many experts expressed the opinion that Iraq had the potential for substantial agricultural growth, but restrictions on water supplies, caused by Syrian and Turkish dam building on the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, might limit this expansion. Water Resources Iraq has more water than most Middle Eastern nations, which led to the establishment of one of the world's earliest and most advanced civilizations. Strong, centralized governments--a phenomenon known as "hydraulic despotism"--emerged because of the need for organization and for technology in order to exploit the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Archaeologists believe that the high point in the development of the irrigation system occurred about 500 A.D., when a network of irrigation canals permitted widespread cultivation that made the river basin into a regional granary (see Ancient Mesopotamia, ch. 1). Having been poorly maintained, the irrigation and drainage canals had deteriorated badly by the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, when the Mongols destroyed what remained of the system (see The Mongol Invasion, ch. 1). About one-fifth of Iraq's territory consists of farmland. About half of this total cultivated area is in the northeastern plains and mountain valleys, where sufficient rain falls to sustain agriculture. The remainder of the cultivated land is in the valleys of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers, which receive scant rainfall and rely instead on water from the rivers. Both rivers are fed by snowpack and rainfall in eastern Turkey and in northwest Iran. The rivers' discharge peaks in March and in May, too late for winter crops and too early for summer crops. The flow of the rivers varies considerably every year. Destructive flooding, particularly of the Tigris, is not uncommon, and some scholars have placed numerous great flood legends, including the biblical story of Noah and the ark, in this area. Conversely, years of low flow make irrigation and agriculture difficult. Not until the twentieth century did Iraq make a concerted effort to restore its irrigation and drainage network and to control seasonal flooding. Various regimes constructed several large dams and river control projects, rehabilitated old canals, and built new irrigation systems. Barrages were constructed on both the Tigris and the Euphrates to channel water into natural depressions so that floods could be controlled. It was also hoped that the water could be used for irrigation after the rivers peaked in the spring, but the combination of high evaporation from the reservoirs and the absorption of salt residues in the depressions made some of the water too brackish for agricultural use. Some dams that created large reservoirs were built in the valleys of tributaries of the Tigris, a measure that diminished spring flooding and evened out the supply of water over the cropping season. When the Euphrates was flowing at an exceptionally low level in 1984, the government was able to release water stored in reservoirs to sustain farmers. In 1988 barrages or dam reservoirs existed at Samarra, Dukan, Darband, and Khan on the Tigris and Habbaniyah on the Euphrates. Two new dams on the Tigris at Mosul and Al Hadithah, named respectively the Saddam and Al Qadisiyah, were on the verge of completion in 1988. Furthermore, a Chinese-Brazilian joint venture was constructing a US$2 billion dam on the Great Zab River, a Tigris tributary in northeastern Iraq. Additional dams were planned for Badush and Fathah, both on the Tigris. In Hindiyah on the Euphrates and in Ash Shinafiyah on the Euphrates, Chinese contractors were building a series of barrages. Geographic factors contributed to Iraq's water problems. Like all rivers, the Tigris and the Euphrates carry large amounts of silt downstream. This silt is deposited in river channels, in canals, and on the flood plains. In Iraq, the soil has a high saline content. As the water table rises through flooding or through irrigation, salt rises into the topsoil, rendering agricultural land sterile. In addition, the alluvial silt is highly saline. Drainage thus becomes very important; however, Iraq's terrain is very flat. Baghdad, for example, although 550 kilometers from the Persian Gulf, is only 34 meters above sea level. This slight gradient makes the plains susceptible to flooding and, although it facilitates irrigation, it also hampers drainage. The flat terrain also provides relatively few sites for dams. Most important, Iraq lies downstream from both Syria and Turkey on the Euphrates River and downstream from Turkey on the Tigris River. In the early 1970s, both Syria and Turkey completed large dams on the Euphrates and filled vast reservoirs. Iraqi officials protested the sharp decrease in the river's flow, claiming that irrigated areas along the Euphrates in Iraq dropped from 136,000 hectares to 10,000 hectares from 1974 to 1975. Despite cordial relations between Iraq and Turkey in the late 1980s, the issue of water allocation continued to cause friction between the two governments. In 1986 Turkey completed tunnels to divert an estimated one-fifth of the water from the Euphrates into the Ataturk Dam reservoir. The Turkish government reassured Iraq that in the long run downstream flows would revert to normal. Iraqi protests were muted, because Iraq did not yet exploit Euphrates River water fully for irrigation, and the government did not wish to complicate its relationship with Turkey in the midst of the Iran-Iraq War. Land Tenure and Agrarian Reform Iraq's system of land tenure and inefficient government implementation of land reform contributed to the low productivity of farmers and the slow growth of the agricultural sector. Land rights had evolved over many centuries, incorporating laws of many cultures and countries. The Ottoman Land Code of 1858 attempted to impose order by establishing categories of land and by requiring surveys and the registration of land holdings. By World War I, only limited registration had been accomplished and land titles were insecure, particularly under the system of tribal tenure through which the state retained ownership of the land although tribes used it. By the early 1930s, large landowners became more interested in secure titles because a period of agricultural expansion was underway. In the north, urban merchants were investing in land development, and in the south tribes were installing pumps and were otherwise improving land (see Rural Society, ch. 2). In response, the government promulgated a law in 1932 empowering it to settle title to land and to speed up the registration of titles. Under the law, a number of tribal leaders and village headmen were granted title to the land that had been worked by their communities. The effect, perhaps unintended, was to replace the semicommunal system with a system of ownership that increased the number of sharecroppers and tenants dramatically. A 1933 law provided that a sharecropper could not leave if he were indebted to the landowner. Because landowners were usually the sole source of credit and almost no sharecropper was free of debt, the law effectively bound many tenants to the land. The land tenure system under the Ottomans, and as modified by subsequent Iraqi governments, provided little incentive to improve productivity. Most farming was conducted by sharecroppers and tenants who received only a portion--often only a small proportion--of the crop. Any increase in production favored owners disproportionately, which served as a disincentive to farmers to produce at more than subsistence level. For their part, absentee owners preferred to spend their money in acquiring more land, rather than to invest in improving the land they had already accumulated. On the eve of the 1958 revolution, more than two-thirds of Iraq's cultivated land was concentrated in 2 percent of the holdings, while at the other extreme, 86 percent of the holdings covered less than 10 percent of the cultivated land. The prerevolutionary government was aware of the inequalities in the countryside and of the poor condition of most tenant farmers, but landlords constituted a strong political force during the monarchical era, and they were able to frustrate remedial legislation. Because the promise of land reform kindled part of the popular enthusiasm for the 1958 revolution and because the powerful landlords posed a potential threat to the new regime, agrarian reform was high on the agenda of the new government, which started the process of land reform within three months of taking power. The 1958 law, modeled after Egypt's law, limited the maximum amount of land an individual owner could retain to 1,000 dunums (100 hectares) of irrigated land or twice that amount of rain-fed land. Holdings above the maximum were expropriated by the government. Compensation was to be paid in state bonds, but in 1969 the government absolved itself of all responsibility to recompense owners. The law provided for the expropriation of 75 percent of all privately owned arable land. The expropriated land, in parcels of between seven and fifteen hectares of irrigated land or double that amount of rain-fed land, was to be distributed to individuals. The recipient was to repay the government over a twenty-year period, and he was required to join a cooperative. The law also had temporary provisions maintaining the sharecropping system in the interim between expropriation and redistribution of the land. Landlords were required to continue the management of the land and to supply customary inputs to maintain production, but their share of the crop was reduced considerably. This provision grew in importance as land became expropriated much more rapidly than it was being distributed. By 1968, 10 years after agrarian reform was instituted, 1.7 million hectares had been expropriated, but fewer than 440,000 hectares of sequestered land had been distributed. A total of 645,000 hectares had been allocated to nearly 55,000 families, however, because several hundred thousand hectares of government land were included in the distribution. The situation in the countryside became chaotic because the government lacked the personnel, funds, and expertise to supply credit, seed, pumps, and marketing services--functions that had previously been performed by landlords. Landlords tended to cut their production, and even the best-intentioned landlords found it difficult to act as they had before the land reform because of hostility on all sides. Moreover, the farmers had little interest in cooperatives and joined them slowly and unwillingly. Rural- to-urban migration increased as agricultural production stagnated, and a prolonged drought coincided with these upheavals. Agricultural production fell steeply in the 1960s and never recovered fully. In the 1970s, agrarian reform was carried further. Legislation in 1970 reduced the maximum size of holdings to between 10 and 150 hectares of irrigated land (depending on the type of land and crop) and to between 250 and 500 hectares of nonirrigated land. Holdings above the maximum were expropriated with compensation only for actual improvements such as buildings, pumps, and trees. The government also reserved the right of eminent domain in regard to lowering the holding ceiling and to dispossessing new or old landholders for a variety of reasons. In 1975 an additional reform law was enacted to break up the large estates of Kurdish tribal landowners. Additional expropriations such as these exacerbated the government's land management problems. Although Iraq claimed to have distributed nearly 2 million hectares by the late 1970s, independent observers regarded this figure as greatly exaggerated. The government continued to hold a large proportion of arable land, which, because it was not distributed, often lay fallow. Rural flight increased, and by the late 1970s, farm labor shortages had become so acute that Egyptian farmers were being invited into the country. The original purpose of the land reform had been to break up the large estates and to establish many small owner-operated farms, but fragmentation of the farms made extensive mechanization and economies of scale difficult to achieve, despite the expansion of the cooperative system. Therefore, in the 1970s, the government turned to collectivization as a solution. By 1981 Iraq had established twenty-eight collective state farms that employed 1,346 people and cultivated about 180,000 hectares. In the 1980s, however, the government expressed disappointment at the slow pace of agricultural development, conceding that collectivized state farms were not profitable. In 1983 the government enacted a new law encouraging both local and foreign Arab companies or individuals to lease larger plots of land from the government. By 1984, more than 1,000 leases had been granted. As a further incentive to productivity, the government instituted a profit- sharing plan at state collective farms. By 1987, the wheel appeared to have turned full circle when the government announced plans to reprivatize agriculture by leasing or selling state farms to the private sector. Cropping and Livestock Most farming in Iraq entails planting and harvesting a single crop per year. In the rain-fed areas the winter crop, primarily grain, is planted in the fall and harvested in the spring. In the irrigated areas of central and southern Iraq, summer crops predominate. A little multiple cropping, usually of vegetables, exists where irrigation water is available over more than a single season. Even with some double or triple cropping, the intensity of cultivation is usually on the order of 50 percent because of the practice of leaving about half the arable land fallow each year. In the rain-fed region, land is left fallow so that it can accumulate moisture. The fertility of fallow land is also increased by plowing under weeds and other plant material that grow during the fallow period. On irrigated land, fallow periods also contribute some humus to the soil. Grain, primarily wheat and barley, was Iraq's most important crop. Cereal production increased almost 80 percent between 1975 and 1985, notwithstanding wide variations in the harvest from year to year as the amount and the timing of rainfall strongly affected both the area planted and the harvest. Between 1980 and 1985, the area under wheat cultivation increased steadily for a cumulative growth of 30 percent, to about 1,566,500 hectares. In 1985, the most recent year for which statistics were available in 1988, Iraq harvested a bumper crop of 1.4 million tons of wheat. In 1984, a drought year, Iraq harvested less than half the planted area for a yield of between 250,000 and 471,000 tons, according to foreign and Iraqi sources respectively. The north and central rain-fed areas were the principal wheat producers (see table 7, Appendix). Barley requires less water than wheat does, and it is more tolerant of salinity in the soil. For these reasons, Iraq started to substitute barley production for wheat production in the 1970s, particularly in southern regions troubled by soil salinity. Between 1980 and 1985, the total area under barley cultivation grew 44 percent, and by 1985 barley and wheat production were virtually equal in terms both of area cultivated and of total yield. Rice, grown in paddies, was Iraq's third most important crop as measured by cultivated area, which in 1985 amounted to 24,500 hectares. The area under cultivation, however, did not grow appreciably between 1980 and 1985; 1985 production totaled almost 150,000 tons. Iraq also produced maize, millet, and oil seeds in smaller quantities. A number of other crops were grown, but acreage and production were limited. With the exception of tobacco, of which Iraq produced 17,000 tons on 16,500 hectares in 1985, cash crop production declined steeply in the 1980s. Probably because of domestic competition from synthetic imports and a declining export market, production of cotton was only 7,200 tons in 1985, compared with 26,000 tons in 1977. Production of sugar beets was halted completely in 1983, and sugarcane production declined by more than half between 1980 and 1985. Iraq may have cut back on production of sugar beets and sugarcane because of an intention to produce sugar from dates. Dates, of which Iraq produces eight distinct varieties, have long been a staple of the local diet. The most abundant date groves were found along the Shatt al Arab. In the early 1960s, more than 30 million date palms existed. In the mid-1970s, the Iraqi government estimated that the number of date palms had declined to about 22 million, at which time production of dates amounted to 578,000 tons. The devastation of the Shatt al Arab area during the Iran-Iraq War hastened the destruction of date palm groves, and in 1985 the government estimated the number of date palms at fewer than 13 million. Date production in 1987 dropped to 220,000 tons. The government-managed Iraqi Date Administration, however, planned to increase production in an attempt to boost export revenue. In 1987 about 150,000 tons, or 68 percent of the harvest, was exported, primarily to Western Europe, Japan, India, and other Arab countries. The Iraqi Date Administration also devised plans to construct large facilities to extract sugar, alcohol, vinegar, and concentrated protein meal from dates. Iraq produced a variety of other fruits as well, including melons, grapes, apples, apricots, and citrus. Production of such fruits increased almost 30 percent between 1975 and 1985. Vegetable production also increased, particularly near urban centers, where a comparatively sophisticated marketing system had been developed. Vegetable gardening usually employed relatively modern techniques, including the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides. Tomatoes were the most important crop, with production amounting to more than 600,000 tons in 1985. Other vegetables produced in significant quantity were beans, eggplant, okra, cucumbers, and onions. Overall vegetable production increased almost 90 percent between 1975 and 1985, even though the production of legumes dropped about 25 percent over the same period. Crop production accounted for about two-thirds of value added in the agricultural sector in the late 1980s, and the raising of livestock contributed about one-third. In the past, a substantial part of the rural population had been nomadic, moving animals between seasonal grazing areas. Sheep and goats were the most important livestock, supplying meat, wool, milk, skins, and hair. A 1978 government survey, which represented the most recent official data available as of early 1988, estimated the sheep population at 9.7 million and the goat population at 2.1 million. Sheep and goats were tended primarily by nomadic and seminomadic groups. The 1978 survey estimated the number of cattle at 1.7 million, the number of water buffalo at 170,000, the number of horses at 53,000, and the number of camels at 70,000. In the 1970s, the government started to emphasize livestock and fish production, in an effort to add protein to the national diet. But 1985's red meat production (about 93,000 tons) and milk production (375,000 tons) were, respectively, about 24 and 23 percent less than the in 1975 totals, although other figures indicated that total livestock production remained stable between 1976 and 1985. In the mid-1980s, however, British, West German, and Hungarian companies were given contracts to establish poultry farms. At the same time, the government expanded aquaculture and deep-sea fishing. Total production of processed chicken and fish almost doubled, to about 20,000 tons apiece, from 1981 to 1985, while egg production increased substantially, to more than 1 billion per year. The government planned to construct a US$160 million deep-sea fishing facility in Basra and predicted that, within 10 years, freshwater fishing would supply up to 100,000 tons of fish. Iraq nevertheless continued to import substantial quantities of frozen poultry, meat, and fish to meet local needs for protein.