Key facts
Successive wars, civil unrest and years of economic sanctions have stifled agricultural production in Iraq, with farmers facing shortages of quality seeds and fertilizers, and livestock keepers forced to sell their animals or leave them behind. Some have seen their herds and flocks diminish from disease. Likewise, high food prices have prevented many poorer Iraqis from supplementing Government food rations with fresh, nutritious food. With food security conditions deteriorating, large numbers of internally displaced people (IDPs) are putting burden on hosting communities, in particular as a large share have fled toward cities in the Kurdish region of Iraq. Over the years, FAO has been working in Iraq to boost the agriculture, animal health and water resources sectors. Iraqi people are also benefitting from the FAO projects in terms of technical expertise and capacity building, as well as in the provision of essential inputs. Our emergency assistance programmes focus on providing time-critical livelihood support to families severely affected by the on-going conflict.
Rehabilitating the seed industry
FAO has taken immediate action to rehabilitate the seed industry in Iraq after the war in 2003. Working with the Iraqi Government, our focus was to help rehabilitate damaged infrastructure, provide internal and external training programmes for people in key seed industry disciplines and to review the Iraqi national seed policy and seed law.
FAO provided essential equipment (processing tools, farm equipment, seed processing machines, seed testing equipment), helped build seed testing laboratory buildings and greenhouses and coordinated the rehabilitation of damaged infrastructures in the research stations and laboratories.
The Iraqi National Seed Policy and seed act developed by FAO have been adopted by the Government of Iraq and have provided a blue print for seed industry development in the country, improving the Iraqi Ministry of Agriculture’s capacity to plan and program appropriate strategies in the field of agriculture.
To date, high quality seeds of major crops are available to Iraqi farmers, taking advantage of FAO’s provision of Iraqi research centers with equipment for crop improvement, seed multiplication and quality control. Efforts to increase production and productivity have seen an upward trend for the period 2008-2013.
Promoting efficient cattle breeding techniques
We have been working with government institutions and producers to increase production and productivity by introducing innovative cattle breeding techniques and setting up milk collection centres. Organizing farmers into associations around these centres has been a move that would continually help reduce losses, ensure better quality and expand marketing opportunities. Through these projects, we are promoting the creation of jobs along the dairy value chain – in production, processing and distribution – in rural and urban areas.
One of the biggest projects in the country was to ensure the complete rehabilitation of the Iraqi artificial insemination activity by importing pure Fresian bulls from Australia. From mid 2009 until the beginning of 2010 more than 220,000 frozen semen straws were produced. In 2014, the stored samples had reached 440,000 units in addition to the quantities distributed free of charge to cow owners.
Stimulate fish production
In this respect, we have been working with partners to turn around the fisheries sector and stimulate the production of fish and the resumption of fish farming. To this end, FAO prepared a draft law on fisheries and aquaculture and built two centres, one for fish breeding and genetic research and another for fish farming and hatchery.
Fish cages were installed in dams Kut and Al Hendiah and delivered to the Iraqi Ministry of Agriculture, including a number of equipment and materials for a complete closed recirculation system to ensure the continued supply of fingerlings.
A research center in Al-Hewazeh has been built along with two office buildings in Kut Dam and Al Hendiah.
There is a need for continued support
During 2014, FAO has assisted Iraq with the development of long-term agricultural strategies and policies. In addition, we have been helping Iraqi and Kurdish host communities to deal with the almost 2 million people displaced since January 2014.
FAO’s emergency assistance focuses on providing time-critical livelihood support to 43 000 families (258 000 individuals) severely affected by the on-going conflict. More than 225 000 people (37 500 families) are being currently assisted with emergency agriculture and livelihood support as part of FAO’s component of the Strategic Response Plan, funded by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia with a contribution of US$ 14.7 million.
More funds and assistance continue to be needed to help farming families, particularly in crop and livestock production, to mitigate the damage to food, income and employment sources following the recent escalation of conflict in a large swath of the country.
