Droughts in Iraq endanger buffalo, and farmers' livelihoods

Iraq’s buffalo population has more than halved in a decade as the country’s two main rivers, the Tigris and Euphrates, suffer from severe droughts that endanger the livelihood of many farmers and breeders, Reuters has reported.

“People have left… We are a small number of houses remaining,” said farmer Sabah Ismail, 38, who rears buffalo in the southern province of Dhi Qar. “The situation is difficult… I had 120 to 130 buffalo; now I only have 50 to 60. Some died, and we sold some because of the drought.”

Buffalo have been kept in Iraq for centuries for their milk, and are mentioned in ancient Sumerian inscriptions from the region.

According to Iraqi marshland experts, the root causes of the water crisis driving farmers out of the countryside are climate change, upstream damming in Turkey and Iran, outdated domestic irrigation techniques and a lack of long-term management plans. The country has also endured decades of warfare, from conflict with Iran in the 1980s, through the 1990 Gulf War and the 2003 US- and UK-led invasion to the recent rise and fall of Daesh.

Located within the cultivable lands known as the Fertile Crescent that have been farmed for millennia, the Iraqi landscape has suffered from upstream damming of the Tigris and Euphrates and lower rainfall, threatening the lifestyle of farmers like Ismail and leading many to move to the cities.

Iraqi marshland expert Jassim Al-Assadi told Reuters that the number of buffalo in Iraq has fallen since 2015 from 150,000 to fewer than 65,000. The decline is “mostly due to natural reasons: the lack of needed green pastures, pollution, illness… and also farmers refraining from farming buffalos due to scarcity of income,” he explained.

A drastic decline in crop production and a rise in fodder prices have also left farmers struggling to feed their animals.

“This coming summer, God only knows, the mortality rate may reach half,” said Abdul Hussain Sbaih, 39, an Iraqi buffalo breeder.

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