Farmers innovate to save Iraq’s rice production

Farmers innovate to save Iraq’s rice production
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Sprinklers irrigate a rice field in Mishkhab in Iraq's Najaf province on July 8, 2024. (AFP/File)
Farmers innovate to save Iraq’s rice production
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A man displays different varieties of rice at a plantation in Mishkhab in Iraq's Najaf province on July 8, 2024. (AFP/File)
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Updated 06 August 2024
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Farmers innovate to save Iraq’s rice production

Farmers innovate to save Iraq’s rice production

NAJAF, Iraq: After seeing his once-lush rice field shrink in recent years due to relentless drought, Iraqi farmer Muntazer Al-Joufi fought back using tougher seeds and water-saving irrigation techniques.

“It’s the first time we’re using modern techniques that consume less water” to cultivate rice, Joufi, 40, said as he surveyed his land in the central province of Najaf.

“There is a huge difference” compared to flooding the field, Joufi added, referring to a traditional method by which the land must stay submerged all summer.

But four consecutive years of drought and declining rainfall have strangled rice production in Iraq, which is still recovering from years of war and chaos, and where rice and bread are a staple of the diet.

The United Nations says Iraq is one of the world’s five most climate-vulnerable nations.

Joufi is among farmers receiving support from the agriculture ministry, whose experts have been developing innovative methods to save Iraq’s rice production.

Their work involves pairing resilient rice seeds with modern irrigation systems to replace the flooding method in a country hit by water scarcity, heatwaves and dwindling rivers.

Under Iraq’s scorching sun, with temperature soaring toward 50 degrees Celsius (122 Fahrenheit), Joufi trudged across the muddy field, pausing to tend malfunctioning sprinklers spread out on his one hectare (2.5 acres) of land.

Iraq’s rice crop usually requires between 10 and 12 billion cubic meters of water during the five-month growing period.

However, experts say new methods using sprinklers and drip irrigation use 70 percent less water than the traditional flooding practice, when workers had to ensure fields were totally covered with water.

Now, Joufi said, it takes just “one person to turn on the sprinklers... and water reaches every patch of the land.”

Agriculture ministry experts say that during the years of drought, the area planted with rice has shrunk from more than 30,000 hectares to just 5,000.

“Because of the drought and water scarcity, we must use modern irrigation techniques and new seeds,” said Abdel Kazem Jawad Moussa, who leads a team of such experts.

They have been experimenting with different types of sprinklers, drip irrigation, and five different kinds of seeds that withstand drought and consume less water in the hope of finding the best combination.

“We want to learn which seed genotypes respond well” to irrigation using sprinklers instead of flooding, Moussa said.

Last year, Al-Ghari — a genotype derived from Iraq’s prized amber rice — and South Asian jasmine seeds yielded good results when cultivated with small sprinklers, so experts offered the combination to farmers like Joufi, hoping for the best.

“At the end of the season, we will come up with recommendations,” Moussa said, adding that he also hoped to introduce three new types of seeds next year with a shorter planting season.

In addition to drought, the authorities blame upstream dams built by Iraq’s powerful neighbors Iran and Turkiye for dramatically lowering water levels in the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, which have irrigated Iraq for millennia.

Water scarcity has forced many farmers to abandon their plots, and authorities have drastically reduced farm activity to ensure sufficient drinking water for Iraq’s 43 million people.

In 2022, authorities limited the rice crop areas to 1,000 hectares in Najaf and the southern province of Diwaniyah, the heartlands of planting amber rice.

Recently, farmers in Diwaniyah protested, urging the government to allow them to farm their lands after a two-year halt.

But despite bountiful rains this winter that helped ease water shortages, authorities have only permitted them to cultivate rice on 30 percent of their lands.

“The last good year was 2020,” said farmer Fayez Al-Yassiri in his field in Diwaniyah where he hopes to forge on growing amber and jasmine rice.

Iraq is the second-largest oil producer in the OPEC cartel, but despite having immense oil and gas reserves, it remains dependent on imports to meet its energy needs and faces chronic power outages.

Yassiri urged the authorities to help, specifically by providing farmers with electricity and pesticides.

His cousin Bassem Yassiri was less hopeful. “Water shortages have ended agriculture in this region,” he said.


After Hamas rejection of hostage deal, US asked Qatar to expel the group

After Hamas rejection of hostage deal, US asked Qatar to expel the group
Updated 21 sec ago
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After Hamas rejection of hostage deal, US asked Qatar to expel the group

After Hamas rejection of hostage deal, US asked Qatar to expel the group
  • Negotiators from Israel’s Mossad spy agency have repeatedly met mediators in Doha over the last year and Qatari government officials have shuttled back-and-forth to Hamas leaders in the political office

WASHINGTON/DOHA: The US has told Qatar that the presence of Hamas in Doha is no longer acceptable in the weeks since the Palestinian militant group rejected the latest proposal to achieve a ceasefire and a hostage deal, a senior administration official told Reuters on Friday.
“After rejecting repeated proposals to release hostages, its leaders should no longer be welcome in the capitals of any American partner. We made that clear to Qatar following Hamas’s rejection weeks ago of another hostage release proposal,” the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
Qatar then made the demand to Hamas leaders about 10 days ago, the official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said. Washington has been in touch with Qatar over when to close the political office of Hamas, and it told Doha that now was the time following the group’s rejection of the recent proposal.
Three Hamas officials denied Qatar had told Hamas leaders they were no longer welcome in the country.
Qatar, alongside the US and Egypt, has played a major role in rounds of so-far fruitless talks to broker a ceasefire in Gaza and the release of hostages the militant group is holding in the enclave.
The latest round of Doha talks in mid-October failed to reach a ceasefire, with Hamas rejecting a short-term ceasefire proposal.
The spokesperson for Qatar’s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to Reuters’ request for confirmation or comment.
Last year, a senior US official said Qatar had told Washington it was open to
reconsidering the presence of Hamas
in the country once the Gaza war was over.
This came after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken
told leaders
in Qatar and elsewhere in the region that there could be “no more business as usual” with Hamas after the group led the Oct. 7 attacks on Southern Israel.
Qatar, an influential Gulf state designated as major non-NATO ally by Washington, has hosted Hamas’ political leaders since 2012 as part of an agreement with the US Doha has come under criticism from within the US and Israel over its ties to Hamas since Oct. 7.
Qatar’s Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani has said repeatedly over the last year that the Hamas office exists in Doha to allow negotiations with the group and that as long as the channel remained useful Qatar would allow the Hamas office to remain open.
Negotiators from Israel’s Mossad spy agency have repeatedly met mediators in Doha over the last year and Qatari government officials have shuttled back-and-forth to Hamas leaders in the political office.

 

 


US defense chief holds first call with new Israeli counterpart

US defense chief holds first call with new Israeli counterpart
Updated 09 November 2024
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US defense chief holds first call with new Israeli counterpart

US defense chief holds first call with new Israeli counterpart
  • Katz was sworn in before parliament the previous day
  • The US defense chief also discussed “the need to improve the dire humanitarian conditions in Gaza“

WASHINGTON: US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin discussed Lebanon and Gaza on Friday in his first call with his new Israeli counterpart Israel Katz, the Pentagon said.
Katz was sworn in before parliament the previous day, after his predecessor’s shock dismissal by the prime minister over a breakdown in trust during the war in Gaza — a conflict that began with a devastating Hamas attack against Israel on October 7, 2023.
Austin “held an introductory call today with the new Israeli minister of defense, Israel Katz, and congratulated him on his recent appointment,” Pentagon spokesman Major General Pat Ryder said in a statement.
He told Katz that Washington is committed to a deal that allows Lebanese and Israeli citizens displaced by more than a year of cross-border violence to return to their homes, as well as to the return of hostages seized by Palestinian militant group Hamas, Ryder said.
The US defense chief also discussed “the need to improve the dire humanitarian conditions in Gaza,” after he and Secretary of State Antony Blinken told Israel in a letter earlier this month that it needed to allow more aid into the small war-wracked coastal territory.


Palestinian leader tells Trump ready to work for Gaza peace

Mahmud Abbas told Donald Trump he was ready to work toward a “just and comprehensive peace” in Gaza. (Reuters)
Mahmud Abbas told Donald Trump he was ready to work toward a “just and comprehensive peace” in Gaza. (Reuters)
Updated 09 November 2024
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Palestinian leader tells Trump ready to work for Gaza peace

Mahmud Abbas told Donald Trump he was ready to work toward a “just and comprehensive peace” in Gaza. (Reuters)

RAMALLAH: Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas expressed readiness to work toward a “just and comprehensive peace” in Gaza during a phone call with US President-elect Donald Trump on Friday, his office said.
Trump’s victory came with the Middle East in turmoil after the outbreak of the Gaza war in October 2023, triggered by the unprecedented attack on Israel by Palestinian militant group Hamas.
Congratulating Trump on his victory, Abbas expressed “readiness to work with President Trump to achieve a just and comprehensive peace based on international legitimacy,” his office said in a statement.
It said that Trump also assured Abbas that he will work to end the war.
“President Trump stressed that he will work to stop the war, and his readiness to work with president Abbas and the concerned parties in the region and the world to make peace in the region.”
While Trump struck a note of peace during his campaign, he also touted his status as Israel’s strongest ally, even going so far as to promise Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu he would “finish the job” against Hamas in Gaza.


Lebanon says three dead in Israel strikes on Tyre

Lebanon says three dead in Israel strikes on Tyre
Updated 08 November 2024
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Lebanon says three dead in Israel strikes on Tyre

Lebanon says three dead in Israel strikes on Tyre
  • The strikes targeted three buildings in the city
  • Israel had issued no evacuation warning ahead of the strikes

BEIRUT: The Lebanese health ministry said at least three people were killed and 30 others wounded on Friday in Israeli strikes on the southern city of Tyre.
The official National News Agency said the strikes targeted three buildings in the city and caused heavy damage to neighboring apartment blocks.
It said Israel had issued no evacuation warning ahead of the strikes.
Israel has been at war with Lebanese militant group Hezbollah since late September, when it broadened its focus from fighting Hamas in the Gaza Strip to securing its northern border, even as the Gaza war continues.
Hezbollah began low intensity strikes on Israel in support of Hamas following its Palestinian ally’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel which triggered the Gaza war.


‘Strong likelihood’ famine imminent in north Gaza, say food security experts

‘Strong likelihood’ famine imminent in north Gaza, say food security experts
Updated 08 November 2024
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‘Strong likelihood’ famine imminent in north Gaza, say food security experts

‘Strong likelihood’ famine imminent in north Gaza, say food security experts
  • The warning comes just days ahead of a US deadline for Israel to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza

LONDON: There is a “strong likelihood that famine is imminent in areas” of the northern Gaza Strip, a committee of global food security experts warned on Friday, as Israel pursues a military offensive against Palestinian militants Hamas in the area.
“Immediate action, within days not weeks, is required from all actors who are directly taking part in the conflict, or have influence on its conduct, to avert and alleviate this catastrophic situation,” the independent Famine Review Committee (FRC) said in a rare alert.
The warning comes just days ahead of a US deadline for Israel to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza or face potential restrictions on US military aid.