(ALEPPO, SYRIA--June 30, 2003) - Researchers at one of the world's leading research centers for dry land agriculture reported today that Iraq's ability to feed itself had been compromised by years of neglect, drought, and the aftermath of the war.

"Iraqi agriculture will have a hard time meeting the country's food requirements well into the foreseeable future," said Adel El-Beltagy, director general of the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas, ICARDA.

"Three years of drought, decades of inappropriate government policies that penalized farmers and ignored the environment, and the destruction of Iraq's agricultural research system will take at least five years to repair, El-Beltagy said.

Until then, Iraq will be largely dependent on international food aid. The United Nation's World Food Programme (WFP) estimates that it will need to import more than 2 million tons of food into the country over the next six months at a cost of US$1.7 billion, the largest such effort in the agency's 40-year history. According to the WFP, an estimated 16 million Iraqis -- more than two-thirds of the population -- are thought to be entirely dependent on food aid.

Seed Situation Critical

The place to start rebuilding Iraq's agricultural sector is with the country's seed supply, El-Beltagy noted. Iraqi farmers, he said, will need thousands of tons of high quality seed next year, mainly wheat, rice and barley, as well as vegetable seed, root crops, and seeds for replanting degraded pastures.

"Even if we start now, it is unlikely that the international community can meet the country's demand for high quality seed. But what we can do is put into place systems so that Iraqis themselves can produce enough seed to meet the demand three or four years from now," El-Beltagy said.

Last year, an ICARDA-led consortium spearheaded the rebuilding of Afghanistan's seed system, an effort that provided more than 8,000 tons of seed to the country's wheat farmers. The initiative, now in its second year, is providing the infrastructure, training, and management systems needed to ensure the delivery of quality seed to all of the nation's farmers.

Abandoned Fields

Iraqi cereal production dropped sharply over the past decade in large part because of inadequate seed production and distribution systems, which led to a degradation of seed quality and productivity. Lack of high yielding seed has greatly reduced farm efficiency and forced thousands of farmers to abandon their fields.

Up until the late 1970s, Iraq was largely self-sufficient in basic cereals. In recent years, however, Iraq became a net food importer. The country's food requirements are likely to double because of population growth, which stands at an annual rate of 3.6%, roughly twice the growth rate of countries such as India and China.

William Erskine, ICARDA's director of research, notes that India and China are not only self-sufficient in food, they are now also exporters of agricultural commodities. Success in these countries, he said, is due in large part to the excellence of their seed and agricultural research systems.

"What Iraq needs to do has already been done elsewhere and can be repeated with help from CGIAR centers." ICARDA is a Future Harvest Center and is part of the CGIAR -- the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research -- a network of 62 international donors that collectively support the work of 16 agricultural research centers that operate mainly in developing countries.

ICARDA scientists have worked in Iraq for more than twenty years, an effort that saw the introduction of modern crop varieties and improved water and livestock management practices, Erskine noted. "What we hope to do in the near future is bring to bear the expertise of the CGIAR system on Iraqi agriculture." The priority will be to offer Iraq a package of services and technology that includes policy reforms, land and water systems, and the rebuilding of the country's agricultural research system.

A key challenge, he said, will be to cope with salinity problems. Roughly 75 percent of the nation's irrigated land suffers from salinity caused by inappropriate water management practices. "Iraq desperately needs to restructure its irrigation management schemes and introduce more salt-tolerant crop varieties from international breeding programs and genebanks."

ICARDA and other CGIAR centers maintain the world's largest collections of crop varieties, including many Iraqi varieties that date back to ancient times. Iraq lies at the eastern end of the Fertile Crescent, an area of "mega-diversity" of important food crop and pasture species that account for nearly 40 percent of the food crops consumed worldwide. "Maintaining that diversity is important not only to Iraq, but to crop improvement programs around the world," Erskine said.

Human Capital

"Right now we're trying to determine what happened to Iraq's agricultural research infrastructure and, more importantly, the people who used those facilities," adds El-Beltagy. "Happily, I can report that Dr. Kamil Shideed, one of Iraq's most prominent agricultural scientists survived the war and is eager to return to work."

Key scientists from Iraq's agricultural research system, including Shideed, are currently visiting ICARDA headquarters in Aleppo, to work with center scientists on a reconstruction plan for the country's agricultural research system. Nearly 350 Iraqi scientists have been trained at ICARDA in plant breeding and crop and animal management since the center's establishment in 1977.

ICARDA and IFPRI (International Food Policy Research Institute, based in Washington, DC), in collaboration with the Iraqi national program, organized a training workshop for Iraqi researchers on policy and property rights in 1999/2000. Standing third from the right is Dr. Kamil Shideed, National Research Coordinator of the Iraq/ICARDA collaborative program.

Early Assessment

In the meantime, ICARDA is working with colleagues at other CGIAR centers and in advanced research institutions to put together assessment teams that can help Iraqi researchers evaluate the country's crop and animal production.

"We want to get assessment teams into Iraq at the earliest possible date," says El-Beltagy. The teams will be given the job of determining the status of crop and animal biodiversity, seed systems, crop and water management, livestock and feed resources, and institutional and human resource development.

"There is a great deal that we need to learn before work can begin, he says. "Agriculture in Iraq dates back more than 5,000 years, but the damage done over the past two decades won't be easy to undo. What's needed now is information so that we can bring to bear the tools of modern agricultural research and help Iraq develop its agriculture in response to market forces and begin the job of rehabilitating its land and water resources," El-Beltagy said." Basically we will be starting from scratch, adds Ahmed Hachum, an Iraqi irrigation scientist who was on assignment at ICARDA when the war broke out. "The Ministry of Agriculture was completely burned out and my office and laboratory at the University were ransacked."

Hachum, a US-trained water management specialist believes that research will be essential to rebuilding Iraqi agriculture. "The past 20 years," he said "has seen major advances in agricultural science that should be of enormous help to the nation's farmers," he said.

To set things right, Hachum suggests reorganizing the nation's agricultural institutions into a centralized body that can provide realistic planning and budgeting, and also link up to international agricultural research organizations and the private sector. "If we are going to feed the nation, we need to take advantage of advanced technology and break down the isolation that our researchers have experienced over the past years."

Hachum also notes the need for major investments to re-establish a national seed production system and rebuild Iraq's genebank, agricultural research library and its major research laboratories. "Without high quality seed farmers can't grow food and without basic facilities agricultural scientists can't provide the technical support that farmers need to contend things like climate change and water scarcity," he said.

Hachum adds that a major effort is needed to educate a new generation of researchers and extension workers. The usefulness of agricultural technology, he believes, varies from location to location and must be adapted to meet local needs.

"What we need now is to go out and teach as well as learn from our farmers what needs to be done to achieve greater self-sufficiency" Hachum says.

Established in 1977, the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) is one of the 16 centers strategically located all over the world and supported by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). With its main research station and offices based in Aleppo, Syria, ICARDA works through a network of partnerships with national, regional and international institutions, universities, non-governmental organizations and ministries in the developing world; and with advanced research institutes in industrialized countries. www.icarda.cgiar.org

The Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) is a strategic alliance of 62 members, four cosponsors, 12 international organizations, 16 Future Harvest Centers, and many hundreds of civil society organizations. The CGIAR alliance mobilizes cutting-edge agricultural science to create agricultural growth, improve food security, human nutrition, and health, and protect the environment. The knowledge generated by the CGIAR is made freely available to all. www.cgiar.org