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 More than two dozen farmers told Reuters they had not planted the
normal amount of seed, because they could not access their land, did
not have the proper fertilizers or adequate fuel, or because they
had no guarantees that Islamic State would buy their crop as Baghdad
normally does.
Farmers, and Iraqi and United Nations' officials, now fear a
drastically reduced crop this spring. That could leave hundreds of
thousands of Iraqis hungry. But another big loser would be Islamic
State, which controls territory that normally produces as much as 40
percent of Iraq's wheat crop.
The breakaway al Qaeda group, which declared an Islamic caliphate
across parts of Syria and Iraq last summer, has killed thousands and
forced hundreds of thousands from their homes. Islamic State
militants had hoped to use wheat to show it can govern better than
the Arab governments it condemns as infidels. They have published
pamphlets with photos of golden fields and fighters distributing
food.
A bad crop might not cost the group control of territory, but it
would seriously dent its campaign to be seen as an alternative
government, and hurt its credibility among some fellow Sunnis.
Iraqi farmers have long complained of Baghdad's neglect and
mismanagement of agriculture. International sanctions and the U.S.
invasion further hurt the sector. But many farmers say this planting
season marks an all-time low.
 Across the border in Syria, where Islamic State has controlled the
city of Raqqa since May 2013, wheat production last year was down
almost 70 percent from the level before the civil war, according to
the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).
Syrian farmers in Islamic State-held territory say production was
hit by the conflict, poor rainfall and fuel shortages. Several told
Reuters that Islamic State did not help farmers plant, and did not
purchase their harvest as the Syrian government used to. Instead,
farmers say they were forced to look for new buyers and often fell
prey to avaricious middlemen.
U.N. and Iraqi government officials don't have access to much of
Iraq, so cannot provide an accurate forecast of the country's 2015
wheat crop. Farmers will begin harvesting in April and production
will also be determined by the weather – so far very favorable
according to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) –
and farmers' access to their fields.
Farming in huge swathes of the rural belt around Baghdad has also
shut down because of violence, or because farmers fear the Shi'ite
militias which now control the area and are fighting Islamic State.
But the greatest concern is in northern Iraq. Interviews with
farmers who remain on their land or have left for Kurdistan, suggest
that few in Islamic State-controlled parts of the country's
breadbasket region were able to plant as normal.
Recent satellite imagery from NASA and USDA reinforces that. The
imagery, publicly available through the Global Agriculture
Monitoring Project at the University of Maryland, shows that crops
in Islamic State-controlled parts of Nineveh and Salahadeen
provinces appear far less healthy than in Kurdish-held territory.
Sunni farmer Abu Amr laments how tough it has become. Abu Amr once
hated Iraq's Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, who lost power
following elections last April. But his view began to change when he
was not paid for last season's harvest. Instead, Islamic State
militants stole it from a government silo they had seized.
"When we saw the chaos of IS we wanted Maliki back. Everything is
gone, my livestock, my harvest, everything," he said. Abu Amr has moved to peshmerga-held Kirkuk. Old neighbors have told
him by phone that they have planted about a third of his 25 hectares
(61 acres) using seeds stored in his house. He sent some cash to buy
fertilizer, but not enough.
"We used to blame Maliki for everything. Now we cry and hope for the
return of those days," he said. "Before, there was some kind of
security, some kind of state. It is incomparable to the current
situation."
 AIRSTRIKES AND LANDMINES
During its military campaign against Baghdad, Islamic State used
wheat as a symbol of its new power. It seized government silos and
hundreds of thousands of tonnes of wheat from opponents, especially
members of the Christian and Yazidi minorities.
Much as it did in Syria, Islamic State has kept Iraqi government
employees and silo operators in place to help run its "caliphate".
That decision provided an early propaganda victory, when fighters
handed out milled flour in sacks stamped with the Islamic State logo
in Mosul, the north's largest city.
But U.S.-led airstrikes and pressure from Iraqi forces, allied
militias and Iraqi Kurdish fighters known as the Peshmerga have made
it hard to defend ground, let alone govern.
Islamic State has not only lost some territory but, preoccupied by
its military effort, it has been unable to provide farmers with
seeds, fertilizer and fuel at subsidized rates, as the Baghdad
government does.
"There was no support," said a Sunni Arab farmer in Sharqat, a town
on the Tigris, just east of the road linking the militant-held
cities of Tikrit and Mosul.
"Normally we get supplies (for planting) from the government but
this year, we got nothing."
Further north, Yazidi farmer Salim Saleem abandoned his fields and
olive tree groves when Islamic State fighters overran the fertile
Nineveh valley. Now he lives with his family in a rented house in
Dohuk, in the relative safety of Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdish
region. He says airstrikes and Peshmerga forces have not dislodged
Islamic State from his hometown of Bashiqa, but have turned the
farmland into a battlefield.
Several weeks ago Saleem scaled the Peshmerga-held Zartek mountain
near Bashiqa to inspect Yazidi-owned land. "I saw with my own eyes
that the land was bare," he said.
In areas recently retaken by Peshmerga forces, there are constant
reminders of the dangers that have kept many farmers from planting.
[to top of second column] |
In the Makhmur district southeast of Mosul, a group of Kurdish
farmers gathered one mid-December afternoon after heavy rains. In a
normal planting season, rain would be a blessing. But most of the
men were from areas too close to the frontline to risk returning to
their fields.
As they talked, a loud explosion sounded in the distance. The
farmers looked up, assuming the noise had been an airstrike. Then
one received a phone call saying a landmine had exploded.
Kurdish farmer Mushir Othman Hassan explained how two tractor
drivers in the area had recently driven over landmines. One died.
The other lost both his legs and an eye.
In his Islamic State-held village of Surnaj el Kobra, about 15 km (9
miles) away, Hassan said he knew some of his Arab neighbors were
planting, but said they too were hurt by the fighting.
"They are just planting a subsistence amount for themselves. Daish
has not intervened with them," he said, using the derogatory Arabic
term for Islamic State. He said his neighbors had told him by phone
that fighters "visited them" while they were planting but that
Islamic State "doesn't have a big presence because of airstrikes."
Islamic State, he said "are people who take things, they don't
give."
His and other accounts of planting in Islamic State-held areas could
not be independently verified.
In Gwer district just across the Greater Zab river from Islamic
State-held land, local Agriculture Ministry official Moustafa
Mohammed said less than half the area normally planted with wheat
and barley has been sowed this season. Much of the territory – about
50,000 hectares – was still not secure, he said.
SUNNI DISILLUSIONMENT
Islamic State's attempts to help farmers seem to have backfired.
Several farmers reached by phone in areas controlled by the group
said they had rejected subsidized seeds offered to them by the
militants.
"We don't want any help from them," said Saidullah Fathi, a farmer
from Surnaj al-Kobra, southeast of Mosul.
Others said the seeds came from wheat stolen by the militants and
called it "haram", or forbidden.
While Iraqi farmers have long complained of Baghdad's neglect and
mismanagement, one Sunni wheat farmer, speaking through a crackling
phone line from Sharqat, said life under the militants and
government rule was like "the difference between night and day." He
receives only a few hours of electricity a day, and needs to buy
fertilizer on the black market at exorbitant prices.
Many farmers feel caught in a conflict that could last for years.
"We can't go back home and feel secure on the land. I can't convince
my relatives to come back," said farmer Sherzaid Sadradein, a Kurd
now living in a house in Arbil. "In our village, only one person (of
19 farmers) is planting, just as a shot in the dark. In the past,
during the worst days under Saddam, we were only able to plant 10
percent. Now that 10 percent has been reduced to one percent."
Farmers who have managed to plant worry that Islamic State will not
offer them the government price come harvest time. Depending on the
quality of the wheat, Baghdad normally pays farmers up to 750,000
Iraqi dinars ($650) per tonne, more than double the price it pays
for imported wheat.
Baraa Mohamed Salih, agriculture adviser to the governor of
Salahadeen, the country's top wheat-producing province in recent
years, said Baghdad had decided not to deliver subsidized seeds,
fertilizer, or fuel to government-held parts of Nineveh and
Salahadeen this year because it fears it would end up helping the
militants.
The FAO has distributed seeds and fertilizer to needy farmers in the
north but is also concerned such moves will play into Islamic
State's hands.
"We have avoided areas that will not be secure during growing
season," said Alfredo Impiglia, senior emergency coordinator for
FAO's Iraq operation.
"We try not to serve Islamic State."
He says it is impossible to measure planting in Islamic State-held
areas. "There will be decreased planting for sure," said Impiglia.
"How much we cannot say."
An estimated 2.8 million people in Iraq currently need food
assistance, said Jane Pearce, head of the World Food Programme's
Iraq office.
In a rented house in Arbil packed with members of his extended
family, Ali Ibrahim Awadh, a tribesman from the Sunni Jabour group,
pondered the fate of his farmland, livestock, fruit and date groves.
His town of Hajaj was the site of early fighting, in part because it
is home to many members of the army and police. Hundreds of members
of his tribe have fled.
"In the beginning, people liked Islamic State because they had been
suffering," said Awadh. "We too wanted change, but not in this
destructive way. We see now that they are criminals, gangsters,
destroyers."
($1 = 1,153.0000 Iraqi dinars)
(Additional reporting by Suleiman Al-Khalidi in Amman and Ahmed
Rasheed in Baghdad; Editing by Michael Georgy and Simon Robinson)
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