Sunday, March 20, 2011

Water shortage threatens Iraqi agriculture projects

Saturday, March 19th 2011 1:53 PM
 

Baghdad, March 19 (AKnews) - Iraq is expected to face a serious shortage in water supplies which could pose a serious threat to the country’s agricultural sector this summer, says the ministry of water resources.

The ministry’s warning comes as the ministry of agriculture is planning to implement various agriculture projects this summer in an attempt to cultivate 3 million dunams of farmland to grow 3 tons of wheat to meet domestic demands.

"The available water in the basins of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers so far is not enough to develop a plan to irrigate farmland in the summer,” said the Iraqi Ministry of Water Resources Projects Director, Ali Hashim.

For this reason, Iraq needs to use the modern irrigation methods instead of watering the farmlands directly from the rivers, said Mr Hashim.

On Friday, the spokesman for the ministry, Karim al-Tamimi, told AKnews that the Ministry of Agriculture planned to purchase 3000 water sprinklers costing about IQD160 billion ($136 million) to avoid water wastage.

Despite ample rainfalls this year, particularly in recent weeks, Iraq is still suffering from water shortages for agricultural projects due to inadequate rainfalls over the past two years.

A`nother major issue is that the Iraqi rivers originate from Turkey and Iran. And one of the main rivers, Euphrates, originating from Turkey, enters Iraq through Syria.

Turkey is already working on the construction a major dam on the rivers. And Syria has announced in plans to build a water project on the river Euphrates on its territories.

Iran has blocked river water flowing into Iraqi territories several times. In 2008 Iran built a dam on the river Alwand which prevented its usual flow into Iraq through the northern Khanaqin region. The river, now completely dry had played a vital role in the area’s agricultural irrigation projects.

Iraq has engaged in talks with Turkey and Syria on several occasions to reach agreements over the flow of water into Iraq from shared rivers. The talks have not yet met with any success and both countries have gone ahead with plans to build dams that further reduce the volume of water entering Iraq.

Fuelling deeper concern for the country’s water deficit, recent studies indicate that Iraq will suffer a 44% drop in rainfalls over the coming years.

Iraq has called on the United Nations Food Aid Organization (FAO) to step up its support for the supply of water from the two rivers that originate in Turkey.

Reported by Jaa'far al-Wannan, edited by Raber Y. Aziz

http://www.aknews.com/en/aknews/3/226171/

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