U.S. aid officials and members of the Iraqi government have recently attended a symposium designed to improve the rural sector's productivity through effective water management and proper crop selection.
Img: Cornfields near the Euphrates river, Iraq. Credit: Jayel Aheram/flickr
The March 04 irrigation conference titled “Reviving Irrigation Districts” was inaugurated by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) deputy mission director Thomas R. Delaney and the Iraqi Minister of Water Resources Dr. Abdul Latif Jamal Rashid in the capital Baghdad.
Agriculture is the largest single employer in Iraq and its second most important industry behind oil. The country has close to 30 million acres of land deemed suitable for farming as the area is surrounded by the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. According to USAID, of the 30 million acres, 20 million are considered irrigable with the remainder relying on rainfall.
However, serious neglect of irrigation infrastructure over a period of 20 years by Iraqi farmers has led to "serious deficiencies and degradation, constraining availability of water for agriculture," said the aid agency's statement.
In order that these challenges be met head-on, USAID's Inma Agribusiness Program invited leading Iraqi agricultural researchers, economists, and policy experts to review and identify advances needed to manage farm production with limited water resources.
Utilising fresh skills and resources, the program aims to analyze a range of options for Iraqi farmers to manage water efficiently and obtain higher crop yields. The program looks to encourage higher value and more water-efficient crops, examine participative water schemes and also examine the possibility of bringing in the expertise and higher funding of public-private partnerships.
The agency says such partnerships would promote the use of efficient irrigation and relieve governments of the responsibility of maintaining irrigation infrastructure.
The water management program complements USAID's other work in Iraq where it has responded to the country's needs by investing $6 billion USD since 2003 on projects designed to improve national, local and provincial governance and communities and foster economic and agricultural growth.
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