farming technology for iraq - part 1 background

My first real post on this blog. To be honest I wasn't sure how to approach this topic, so I thought a background about Iraqi farming and my family's part would set things up nicely for the "main course" in the upcoming posts.

Efficient, high-yield farming started in the mesopotamian region over 8 millennia ago, supported by arable soil, temperature conducive to two (and sometimes three) harvests in a year, and a harsh environment that made hunter-gatherer lifestyles marginal.

With the progression of the centuries and millennia, farming in this region became the core industry that enabled the growth of cities and city states, supplying it with the food-surplus necessary to allow a large section of society to be permanently lead non-agrarian lives. The combination of multiple harvest, soft fertile soil (conducive to be worked by small numbers of farmers), slow moving rivers enabled a complex network of agri-businesses managed by the city-states to flourish.

This state of affairs continued more-or-less through the sumerian rise and decline, the akkadian and assyrian empires, the persian incursion and the hellenistic period. The conquest of Iraq by the arab-muslim vagrants who hoisted their brand of monotheism upon a people infinitely more civilised than them in the name of "lifting them from ignorance" yet they had the sense not to destroy the farming system... the mongols who began raiding and destroying Iraq, and were finally ousted by the British in World War 1 destroyed the farming system beginning in the 13th century, causing a depression lasting 5 centuries.

The brief respite from this depression began in the 20th century, seeing the growth in farming once again, and that's where my family come in... my ancestors right up to and including my grandfather have been merchants, buying Iraq's surplus farming produce and exporting it via Basra to both the gulf-region as well the wider world (my grandfather had sent a shipload of wheat to Italy during world war 2, only to have the ship sunk by the British in the Mediterranean!).

Farming employed a large section of the population.
It generated net wealth for the nation, including a net-export of agricultural produce
It supported both rural lives as well as urban dwellers dealing in the distribution, transportation and export of the produce.

All until oil was discovered and exploited. Oil was placed as a "state asset"... and it finally gave the state the break it has always sought from the leverage that Iraq's farmers and industrialists had on a government reliant on tax-revenue to maintain itself.

WIth the discovery and exploitation of oil. the government no longer needed the farmers, merchants, transporters, dock-workers or railwaymen to "butter the bread" of the parasitic officers, politicians and "ministries" with their armies of leeching value-less civil servants. With this oil revenue... the government finally had the secret weapon to create the totalitarian state where it had to listen to no-one and where it can raise a "middle class" population of obedient and subservient followers of the state (lest they lose their job and status, with the only remaining employer in town).

The government had the money to employ large swathes of the population. With that in mind, they could ban or constrain the operation of private industry and entrepreneurs until they become a tiny and insignificant section of the economy.

This revolutionary change in the economy was achieved in a remarkable 20 years (starting from 1955).

So how did this affect farming and agriculture? The warehouses were shuttered. The farms closed down. The farmers' retired and their sons became soldiers and died. Iraq began importing food for the first time in its 8 millenia history. And when imports were stopped due to the totalitarian states' wars of aggression, the people starved.

Fast forward to 2009. Iraq is now a democracy, with a constitution nominally accepting the idea of de-centralisation of power. Economic liberalisation is widely "talked about" and the government has initiated several banks (7 state owned and 31 private) as well as a loan-guarantee scheme for private enterprise ($100M guarantee / $500k max per business)... but there's precious little happening on the ground.

What Iraq may need, is a 21st century update of "the sumerian farmer's almanac".

in this "thread" of the blog I want to outline some ideas to revitalise our core industry "farming" and develop it for the 21st century in a sustainable economy providing for the needs of society, helping to reduce current-account imbalances and creating a viable export-oriented focus for economic growth.

Comments by readers are greatly welcome, and I hope to incorporate into the blog whatever excellent ideas / schemes that users can highlight!