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Story by: Sgt. Mary S. Katzenberger
BAGHDAD – On a farm in Tarmiyah, Iraq, a cool breeze brushes lazily across an orange-colored bell pepper clinging to its plant. Despite the excessive mid-afternoon heat and the pull of the sun, the plant’s stems and leaves are refusing to wilt, and the pepper is thriving.
Agricultural production, a difficult practice in Iraq due to prolonged drought conditions and water shortages, has become a successful endeavor on this 86-acre farm.
Thanks to a partnership among Iraq’s Ministry of Agriculture, the U.S. Department of State and 3rd Battalion, 69th Armor Regiment, 1st Advise and Assist Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division, United States Division – Center, the farm has reached increased productivity.
The successes began rolling in for the farm in 2009 when Tim Lowery, a senior agricultural adviser for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, working for the DoS, partnered with an MoA official to interview Abu Hussain, a Tarmiyah-area farmer struggling to keep his generations-old farm productive while facing the stiff challenges the environment and the effects of conflict were presenting.
Hussain’s family had always practiced flood irrigation, a relatively inefficient irrigation technique used prominently in the community. Area farmers have long believed the technique to be the best way to get the maximum amount of water to the roots of the crops.
“We saw that he was progressive-minded,” Lowery said. “But, he was still somewhat trapped within that antiquated model.”
With the blessing of Hussain and the MoA official, the farm was selected to become a demonstration farm to showcase modernized agricultural practices for the community. The goal of the project was to demonstrate agricultural successes that can be easily and cheaply replicated on neighboring farms throughout the region, with the hope of planting the seeds of change.
Best agricultural practices in the Tarmiyah region, where the ground water supply is high in salinity, include the use of drip and sprinkler irrigation techniques, incorporating plastic or organic mulches into the fields, and the utilization of greenhouses to both extend the growing season and to prevent excessive evaporation for more fragile crops, like tomatoes. In addition, varieties of produce known to remove salts from the ground can be planted on a rotational basis to prevent the poisoning of the fields.
Thanks to the modern upgrades, today Hussain’s sprawling farm is the picture of success. The farm produces vegetables, fruits, grains and honey, as well as herds of healthy sheep. In addition, the farm employs eight permanent employees and their families, as well as 25 seasonal employees. The most important success, however, is that the neighbors have noticed Hussain’s bounty.
“Today, what we see is a gentleman whom, [after] we put one greenhouse on his farm, has bought four more with his own money,” Lowery said. “We put drip irrigation on his farm and he’s expanded it. More important than us seeing the benefits is the community sees the benefits.”
To date, a total of 250 farmers in the Tarmiyah area have applied for loans from the MoA and other sources to purchase drip irrigation systems, and 25 farmers have invested in one or more greenhouses.
“We have a number of farmers who have visited our farm,” Hussain said, sitting inside a mudhif, a traditional Iraqi reed house situated near his family’s fields. “They have seen our greenhouses and they’ve seen our farm doing well—we have peak productivity here.”
While peak productivity has allowed Hussain to expand his family farm to turn a profit, the battle is not yet over. Hussain and other farmers in rural Tarmiyah still face many challenges presented by the agriculture industry itself.
Hussain’s brother, Abu Abdullah, a businessman, explained his concerns near a field of bell peppers.
“One of the biggest challenges is diseases [that have started] hitting our farms,” Abdullah said.
Abdullah said obstacles in development throughout the past several years have hindered the country’s ability to properly inspect imports, leaving farmers like him and Hussain with tainted products.
If and when the produce reaches maturity, the problem is then to find a venue at which to sell the products. The central distribution markets Abdullah’s father sold their produce to have been disrupted or are no longer in operation. According to Abdullah, the new vendors refuse to pay reasonable prices for the produce, even though the produce is of high quality.
“The income is really low,” he said. “We don’t get what we used to.”
Other farmers in Tarmiyah simply have a difficult time getting their produce to the vendors’ stands before the produce is ruined by the heat of the day. Sporadic electricity, as well as a lack of refrigeration units prevents many farmers from reaping the fruits of their labors.
To alleviate this concern, Soldiers with 3rd Bat., 69th Arm. Regt. have spearheaded a project to install refrigeration containers in the Tarmiyah region. Once approved, the project would call for the installation of 31 containers, which could be emplaced and be fully operational as early as October.
Lowery said he believes Hussain and his family will continue to be successful in the agriculture business, but added that there is much work left to be done.
The way ahead for Hussain and other farmers in the region, is to continue to develop relationships with the local MoA staff, Lowery said.
“That way when we leave, there’s a resource for the farmer to fall back on should he have questions [about] new technologies and new methodologies,” Lowery said. “Otherwise he’ll just stay in the same rut he’s in—it might be a more modern rut today, but in a couple of years it’ll be something different.”
Lowery is also fostering the development of what he’s hoping will become an agricultural collaboration between the Baghdad University Agriculture College in Abu Ghraib and the College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources at Oklahoma State University as part of a comprehensive engagement by the agriculture team with the provincial reconstruction team in Baghdad. Oklahoma State, a land-grant institution that works closely with the USDA, hosts an international agriculture program.
The second educational initiative Lowery has his hands in is the creation of a working demonstration farm on the campus of Baghdad University. Currently, the 5,000 students in the agriculture college are exposed only to agricultural theory.
“They have very little practical learning [and] that doesn’t work too well in agriculture,” Lowery said.
The working demonstration farm will allow students to conduct trials and actually get their hands dirty, he said.
Ultimately, Lowery’s goal is to promote economic stability in the Tarmiyah region, and this can only be accomplished through education.
“When we go out and talk to these farmers about how to raise more beans or tomatoes, what we’re really attempting to do is stabilize their economy so that they can move up,” Lowery said. “Just like you and me … they just want to do better for their families.
| Date Taken: | 08.22.2010 |
| Date Posted: | 09.08.2010 04:32 |
| Story ID: | 55879 |
| Location: | BAGHDAD, IQ |
| Web Views: | 62 |
| Downloads: | 11 |
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