Basra, Iraq: As a raw of Iraq in blistering summer heat, farmers are difficult and livestock herders fight against severe water shortages that kill animals, fields and their way of life.
The country rich in oil, which was injured by war and rebellion for the past four decades, was also one of the most vulnerable to climate change and struggle with a number of other environmental challenges.
The upstream dam in Turkey and Iran have reduced the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, which are also very polluted by waste, waste and agricultural runoff when they flow southeast through Iraq.
Drought has been about Mesopotamia swamps, said to be the Eden Bible Park site, where the buffalo and its owners have found concessions from summer heat above 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit).
In southern Iraq, where two major streams joined Shatt al-Arab, the reduced flow has caused saltwater intrusion from the bay, lowered the waterway which was shaded by oil palm plantations in its banks.
“Everything we planted in the middle: palm and alfalfa trees that usually tolerate salt water,” said Rafiq Taufiq, a farmer in the city of South Riverside Basra.
Salt water which penetrated upstream further has destroyed thousands of hectares of agricultural land.
This year, the trend has deteriorated again, said Alaa al-Badran, an agricultural engineer in Basra Province.
“For the first time salt in early April, the beginning of the agricultural season,” he said.
Problems are exacerbated because a few decades of military conflict, neglect and corruption have destroyed irrigation systems and water treatment plants.
According to the United Nations, only 3.5 percent of Iraq agricultural land is watered with irrigation systems.
The temporary river is often polluted by viruses and bacteria, oil spills and industrial chemicals.
In Basra, where the freshwater canal was clogged with garbage, more than 100,000 people were hospitalized in 2018 after drinking water was contaminated with waste and toxic waste.
The heat and lack of water have become a blow to the Iraqi agriculture sector, which accounts for five percent of the economy and 20 percent of work, but only provides half of the needs of Iraqi food, which is very dependent on cheap imports.
In a country consisting of 40 million people, “seven million Iraqis have been influenced by drought and the risk of the displacement that he has,” said President Barham Saleh recently.
In Chibayish, at Marshlands Iraq, Buffalo Herder Ali Jasseb said he must now travel a distance to keep animals that produce milk, the only income of his family.
“Every two or three months, we have to travel to find water,” he told AFP.
“Because if the buffalo drink salt water, they are poisoned, they stop producing milk and sometimes they die.” Raad Hmeid, another buffalo, pointing to the cracked ground under his feet.
“Until 10 days ago, this was mud, there was water and even greenery,” he told AFP.
In East Iraq, farmer Cereal Abderrazzaq Qader, 45, said he had not seen the rain “for four years” on his 38 hectare agriculture (94 hectares) in Khanaqin near the Iranian border.
The years of drought, he said, has led many local farmers to leave land to take work as laborers.
In total, “69 percent of agricultural land is threatened with desertification, which means it is considered not feasible for cultivation,” Sarmad Kamel, a state forestry official who works on this problem, told AFP.
Iraq’s agricultural land shrank further because farmers sell their unprofitable plots to developers, Ahmed Saddam’s economist said.
“On the one hand, there are more and more demand for housing, while on the other hand cultivate land no longer generate enough income,” he said.
Instead of continuing their back work to pay a little, many farmers near Basra have sold their plots, often for “between 25,000 and 70,000 euros …
big numbers for farmers,” he said.
At this level, “every year, 10 percent of agricultural land disappears to become a residential area”, he added.
It accelerates rural exodus to cities and major cities, accumulates large pressure on economic, social and environmental cloth in Iraq.
There is little rest seen, warning righteous in a recent statement that said “Climate projections for Iraq estimate an increase of around two degrees Celsius, and a decrease in nine percent rainfall in 2050”.
Another worry projection said that, in the middle of the century, the Iraqi population would multiply to 80 million.