Iraq loses 100,000 dunams of farmland yearly due to desertification

Iraq’s Parliamentary Committee for Agriculture, Water and Marshlands reported on Friday that the country loses 100,000 dunams of farmland out of a total of 32 million dunams every year, due to desertification.

A member of the committee, MP Ali Al-Budairi, told the Iraqi News Agency: “Iraq is losing 100,000 dunams of agricultural land every year due to desertification, and there are no real solutions to this problem so far.”

Al-Budairi explained: “Desertification has caused temperatures to rise to very high rates, due to the absence of sufficient vegetation cover and the shrinkage of green spaces in the country.”

He stressed: “Ongoing meetings are being held between the committee and the Ministry of Water Resources, especially during the summer, to discuss the issue of water scarcity.”

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Al-Budairi pointed out that: “Iraq is still using obsolete irrigation methods, which lead to a significant waste of water resources. There are visions to build dams to preserve water in times of abundance and use it in periods of scarcity.”

The total agricultural area in Iraq amounts to 32 million dunams, according to the Ministry of Agriculture.

To ensure water security, Iraq relies mainly on the Tigris and Euphrates rivers and their tributaries, which all originate from Turkey and Iran and converge near the city of Basra in southern Iraq to form the Shatt Al-Arab that flows into the Persian Gulf.

Iraq has suffered for years from a steady decline of water levels in the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Hence, the water shortage crisis has also been exacerbated by the low precipitation rates in recent years.