IRAQ: Farmers in DIre Straits

[nosmokes]

original -IPS

RAQ:
Farmers in Dire Straits

Dahr Jamail and Ali al-Fadhily

BAGHDAD, Nov 16 (IPS) - Despite the Iraqi prime minister's optimism for the agricultural sector, the farmers who are struggling to survive tell another story.
In an address to Iraqi politicians this week, Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki praised his government's performance in agriculture. Maliki highlighted the new state-supported crop prices, through which farmers would receive subsidies and encouragement to continue growing their crops -- but he did not mention how much the price supports would be.

"The prime minister seems not to be aware of the real problems we are facing here," Haji Jassim, a farmer from the rural Al-Jazeera area near Ramadi, told IPS. Speaking from a relative's home in Baghdad, he added, "What he is talking about would have been good if prices were the only problem, but someone should explain to him the other obstacles we are facing."

Jassim said that one of the main problems is lack of manpower, "since most of our young men who were not killed by U.S. and Iraqi troops are in jail or missing."

The frustrated farmer added that obstacles like lack of electricity, fuel and security in the field and "dozens of others, should be known to the man who claims to be our supporter."

Under the regime of Saddam Hussein, overthrown by U.S.-led forces in 2003, the government purchased crops from farmers in order to encourage them to continue planting. In this way, the government guaranteed that farmers would sell their crops, regardless of how bad the market was under the economic sanctions imposed by the United Nations in 1990.

Many farmers now even wish the Saddam Hussein dictatorship had remained in place, since economic hardship has become so severe under the U.S.-led occupation.
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