In drought-stricken Iraq, 60% of farmers in several provinces have reduced acreage or water use, according to a survey released on Sunday by an international NGO that encourages authorities to better manage water resources.
However, the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) acknowledges that some farmers’ income increased significantly in 2023 compared to 2022, particularly thanks to “higher than initially estimated” rainfall, which led to an improvement in crop quantities.
The NRC study was conducted in July and August in four provinces based on crop results and drought impacts on households by surveying 1,079 people, 40% of whom were women and 94% of whom were residents of rural areas.
In 2023, “access to water” continued to “impact agricultural production,” the survey said: “60% of respondents assured that they had reduced the area under cultivation or the amount of water used due to the ‘extreme drought’. “Provinces of the north (Nineveh, Kirkuk, Salaheddin) or the west (Al-Anbar).
“Among respondents in the farming communities of Nineveh and Kirkuk, four out of five people had to reduce their food spending in the last 12 months,” the humanitarian organization points out.
The study is published a few days before the UN Climate Change Conference (COP 28), which will take place in the United Arab Emirates from November 30th to December 12th.
With temperatures rising, Iraq has just experienced four years of drought. The government criticizes the dams built upstream by its large neighbors Turkey and Iran, which have drastically reduced the flow of the two rivers Tigris and Euphrates that flow into Iraq.
But NRC also points to the “management of water resources” on Iraqi territory and “irrigation practices that make inefficient use of ever-decreasing water reserves.”
“Nearly 70% of farmers surveyed say they use flood irrigation,” the organization admits. A method that is “generally considered to be the most water-intensive” and is “poorly suited to areas subject to seasonal droughts.”
Draft Solution: NRC recommends improving capacity “to monitor, regulate and distribute water resources.”
Because “the scale and speed of climate change impacts in Iraq require urgent mitigation and adaptation measures,” warns Anthony Zielicki, acting country director of NRC in Iraq.