Iraq: farmland threatened by wave of drought
Audio 02:32
A farmer on cultivated land in Al-Sahl, Iraq, September 16, 2021 © Ahmad AL-RUBAYE / AFP
By: Lucile Wassermann Follow
3 min
Leaders from many countries are currently meeting in Glasgow for COP26, the climate summit.
Our report of the day focuses on the occasion of the devastating consequences of climate change in certain regions of the world.
In Iraq, the average temperature has risen twice as fast as across the globe, killing crops, killing animals and causing people to leave.
Meeting with farmers north of Baghdad who are bearing the brunt of this global warming.
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It's 7am and Taleb Hamid is riding his old red tricycle, mounted from a dusty trailer.
This 68-year-old Iraqi, a white turban wrapped around his head, takes over his field, or rather what remains of it.
Half of its fruit trees burned down during the summer.
“
This year, our production went from 70
%
to 20 %, because we didn't have enough water to water, so the fruits fell before they ripened. In the past, we could plant aromatic herbs, tomatoes, eggplants ... But today no, because it is too hot and there is not enough water, then everything dies.
"
Record drought
This Iraqi has plowed these lands from a young age.
Like his father before him.
But the job is becoming more and more difficult, he says ... Iraq is going through its second driest season in 40 years and is sorely lacking in water resources.
Farmers are trying to find solutions, but they are still limited.
“
The river levels are very low, so we dug wells and installed pumps to irrigate the fields.
The problem is that these pumping stations do not always work because of the power cuts in the country.
"
Due to lack of profitability, many owners have sold their land in recent years.
Sheikh Mohammed, who owns the fields cultivated by Taleb, is thinking about it today.
Dressed in a white tunic, he greets the farmer and explains his position: "
The fruits do not bring in a lot of money, because we spend everything to make them grow
!"
So the other owners here preferred to raze their fields, divide them into portions and sell them to build buildings
”.
Farmland disappears in the country
For lack of sufficient water resources, Iraqi officials announced in October that they would have to halve the cultivated areas for this winter.
Farmland is disappearing in Iraq, and with it, the country's raw materials.
So the NGOs sound the alarm bells.
"
The situation is mainly due to global warming, but there is also the decrease in the flow of rivers in the country,"
explains
Samah Hadid, spokesperson for the Norwegian Refugee Council
.
Iraq relies heavily on neighboring countries for its water supply as it is downstream from the two rivers Euphrates and Tigris.
So the countries of the region must also take more seriously the agreements for the sharing of these resources
”.
Without an agreement, its inhabitants will continue to see their lands dry up, their crops die, and will have no other choice but to leave rural areas for cities or elsewhere, where global warming has not yet become. insupportable.
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Iraq
Environment
Weather
Agriculture and Fishing