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DE RUEHGB #1462/01 1320720
ZNR UUUUU ZZH (CCY AD8F7BA0 MSI6818-695)
R 110720Z MAY 08 ZDS
FM AMEMBASSY BAGHDAD
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 7282
INFO RUCNRAQ/IRAQ COLLECTIVE
RUEKJCS/DIA WASHDC
RUEHRC/USDA FAS WASHDC
RHMFISS/HQ USCENTCOM MACDILL AFB FL
RHMFISS/HQ USEUCOM VAIHINGEN GE

UNCLAS BAGHDAD 001462 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
C O R R E C T E D COPY CAPTION 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: ECON EAGR SENV EAID PGOV IZ
SUBJECT: NINEWA:DROUGHT OF RAIN AND CREDIT GIVE LITTLE HOPE 
FOR FALL PLANTING SEASON 
 
 This is a Ninewa Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) 
message. 
 
Summary 
------- 
 
¶1. (SBU) Farmers and agriculture officials across Ninewa told 
the PRT in April that agriculture in this drought-affected 
northern Iraqi province is a "disaster."  Following the 
fourth straight year of below-average rainfall - the worst in 
recent memory for the province's farmers - Ninewa's mainstay 
wheat and barley crops have been deemed a "failure."  Whereas 
wheat stalks should already be covered with "heads of gold" 
at this point in the season, fields across Ninewa are instead 
barren.  While Ninewa's 75,000 farm families are used to dry 
conditions, successive years of drought, roll-over of unpaid 
loans and lack of GOI support since 2003 have left them 
unable to secure the credit needed to buy seed for this 
September's planting season.  Ninewa's farmers advocate a 
one-year, non-bank seed credit program to get them through 
this fall's planting season. 
 
Farmers Abandoning This Year's Crop 
----------------------------------- 
 
¶2. (SBU) In a circuit of regular meetings, the PRT in April 
reevaluated the state of provincial agriculture with the same 
western Ninewa farmers it had met during the 2007 fall 
planting season.  At that time, the farmers had been 
optimistic that fledgling private and Agricultural Bank 
sources of credit and seed would allow them to exploit decent 
rainfall.  However, this year's rains were both late and a 
fraction of the farmers' needs.  In the last two months, many 
farmers abandoned the stunted grain shoots in their fields. 
To cut their losses, the farmers plowed the shoots back into 
the ground - a sign of their desperation over the failed crop 
- to help preserve at least some soil fertility. 
 
¶3. (SBU) Even in the eastern Ninewa, which received 
relatively more rainfall and has better access to power and 
irrigation, provincial agriculture officials said this year's 
grain crop will be one of the worst years in memory.  Farmers 
with access to irrigation have focused their energy on 
higher-value per area vegetable crops that can benefit from 
the concentrated irrigation efficiency demanded by the 
province's limited supply of power to its irrigation pumps. 
 
GOI Support Insufficient 
------------------------ 
 
¶4. (SBU) The province has received no response to its 
requests for Ministry of Agriculture assistance for 
genetically improved seeds and fertilizer.  While the 
Ministry of Agriculture in Ninewa has in the past supplied 
seeds, fertilizer and fuel, farmers complain they have never 
received sufficient amounts for their farms.  Farmers 
typically receive non-genetically improved seed from GOI 
silos.  That seed has a lower resistance to disease and 
insects, yielding a crop that is 30 percent less than would 
be possible with genetically improved varieties.  With both 
fuel and fertilizer, for which the GOI is the only supplier, 
farmers say they never get more than half of what they need 
for their lands.  Meanwhile, private importers of seeds, 
fertilizer and fuel do not exist.  Only with sheep have the 
province's farmers received significant government support, 
with the Provincial Council and Director General of 
agriculture jointly supplying fodder this spring. 
 
Credit Drought as Bad as Rain Drought 
------------------------------------- 
 
¶5. (SBU) Most of the province's 75,000 farmers were unable to 
get any credit assistance for the last planting season.  The 
3,500 who did get loans from the Agricultural Bank for seed 
and fertilizer expect not to repay those loans because of 
this year's crop failure.  Repayment of such loans is a 
prerequisite for borrowing for the purchase of farm inputs 
for the 2008 fall planting season.  Bankers feel burned by 
the 90 percent of unpaid farm loans in the province, many 
dating back to before 2003, and have said they will extend no 
more credit until old loans are repaid. 
 
¶6. (SBU) Local representatives of the Agricultural Bank said 
they have heard about the $100 million in Ministry of 
Agriculture funds dedicated to farmers nationwide, but said 
they expect little will come to Ninewa.  Meanwhile, farmers 
said that even if the funds do come, their $3,000 to $5,000 
amounts would be too small to be useful. 
 
 
 
Seeds and Sales Through Silos Could Help 
---------------------------------------- 
 
¶7. (SBU) Ninewa farmers' main need for credit is to purchase 
seed.  Given the insufficient GOI lending programs and lack 
of private credit opportunities mentioned above, many farmers 
across Ninewa told the PRT they may not be able to plant this 
fall.  One idea they advocate, though, would eliminate the 
need for bank credit: free genetically improved seed 
distributions from GOI silos in the fall to be repaid next 
spring with guaranteed harvest sales to the silos.  The 
system would eliminate the need for farm credit, which 
farmers use overwhelmingly for seed purchases.  Also, as a 
one-year program, it would allow farmers to produce a crop 
that feeds the entire local economy, repay old loans, and 
stockpile resources and cash to re-enter the commercial 
credit market next year.  The universal constant of 
corruption would exist in this program, as in any other 
entitlement, but farmers argued that at least this program 
would provide them a means to circumvent the institutional 
issues listed above that threaten to shut them out of farming 
entirely. 
 
Comment: GOI Assistance Needed in Some Form 
------------------------------------------- 
 
¶8. (SBU) Following four years of drought and amid a closed 
credit market, Ninewa's farmers are already looking with 
desperation beyond this year's failed crops.  The farmers 
need the most basic of farm inputs - seeds - to operate this 
fall but they have neither the credit nor their own funds to 
buy those seeds.  An idea like extending GOI-purchased seeds 
directly to farmers who would repay their debt to the 
government through harvests is a possible solution.  Together 
with increased fuel and fertilizer supplies - through either 
increased domestic production or imports - a seed 
distribution plan linked to guaranteed GOI crop purchases may 
get Ninewa's farmers through the next season. 
CROCKER