Afak (Iraq) (AFP)

This year, for the first time, Ahmed Mohsen easily sells his melons on the Iraqi markets: thanks to the containment decreed in the face of the Covid-19 pandemic, Iranian and Turkish fruits and vegetables are no longer there to compete with him.

With 32 border crossings to Iran, Turkey, Syria and Jordan, Iraq has long been a paradise for importers.

In all areas, cheaper foreign products are king and even cover 50% of food needs in a country where a third of the population lives on agriculture.

"For years, farmers have worked at a loss, without any support from the state," said AFP Mr. Mohsen, a 32-year-old agricultural engineer.

On the other side of the borders, Iran and Turkey pocket 2.8 and 2.2 billion dollars each year (2.5 and 1.9 billion euros) by exporting agricultural and food products to the 'Iraq.

With the pandemic, the authorities closed the borders, indirectly helping producers. "They were not intended to help the farmers, but they allowed us to prove that we could meet the food needs of the Iraqis," said Mohsen.

- State control -

His village, Afak, is known throughout the country for its melons, which feed the country every day.

Its province, Diwaniyah, is one of the country's major wheat and barley reservoirs, as well as the bastion of "amber" rice, a species unique in the world which has made a reputation for Iraqi cuisine.

In 2020, for the first time in a long time, Iraq managed to be self-sufficient on 28 products, told AFP Mohammed Kechache, president of the Diwaniya Agricultural Confederation.

Egg production has jumped, for example, from 11 million in January to 17 million in April, May and June, according to the Ministry of Agriculture.

Hani Cheïr grows melons, watermelons, eggplants, cucumbers and tomatoes. It is the first time, he says, that his products, "of better quality than imports" have their chance on the stalls. Without competition, he adds, "prices have fallen", making domestic goods more accessible.

Khachan Kariz, 70, has cultivated dozens of hectares of grain for decades.

Usually, in a country where the heritage of Saddam Hussein's time is still very much present, with an economy almost entirely controlled by the state, he sells his production at a price more expensive than that of the market, to State cooperatives who then sell their crops.

It is they who sell the some five million tonnes of cereals bought by the State in the country, supplemented by nearly three million tonnes imported, mainly in the form of refined flour.

But "each year, the state delays paying farmers and makes them take losses," said Kariz to AFP.

- Financial and moral support -

This year, Mr. Kariz therefore sold his crop for the first time directly on the wholesale markets. For less, but faster, and especially in cash.

Because, not only do farmers accumulate unpaid debts, but low-cost imports from the State also flood the market and block access to their products bought at gold prices by the State.

Faced with these surpluses from elsewhere, many farmers therefore prefer to leave their land fallow rather than working at a loss, ensure the experts of the environmental magazine Sustainability.

Others prefer to cheat and smuggle grain to sell it to the state then mixed with their production, to generate more income, assures AFP a government official.

Now, Kariz hopes that Baghdad will "prevent imports to support Iraqi farmers financially and morally".

The Ministry of Agriculture has already banned the import of 25 fruits and vegetables. At the same time, Syria has stopped exporting dairy products, pulses and cereals due to the pandemic, and Ankara has stopped selling its lemons abroad.

Despite everything, with Turkish and Iranian currencies in free fall, the products of the neighbors continue to make their way on the Iraqi tables, at broken prices.

There, the producer's happiness comes up against its worst obstacle: the increasingly empty pockets of 40 million Iraqis, confined and mostly deprived of income.

© 2020 AFP