Official says Basra’s agriculture may be wiped out

BASRA / IraqiNews.com: A senior official from Basra has warned of the deterioration of the agricultural sector in the province, calling on the federal government to allocate an emergency fund to revive the sector. “The agricultural sector in Basra will be wiped out before winter,” the director of the agricultural department in the province, Aamer Salman, told Iraqi News The official cited random imports, a shortage of allocations and the low levels of water supplies in the province as the main reasons behind the collapse of agriculture. Basra, 590 km (340 miles) south of the Iraqi capital Baghdad, has an estimated metropolitan population of 2,300,000 in 2008. Basra, a Shiite province with 20% of the population are Sunnis, is the cradle of the first civilization of Sumer. It has the seven main Iraqi ports. The first built in Islam 14 A.H. (After Hegira), the city played an important role in early Islamic history. The area surrounding Basra has substantial petroleum resources and many oil wells. The city’s oil refinery has a production capacity of about 140,000 barrels per day (bpd). The only Iraqi outlet to the sea, Basra is in a fertile agricultural region, with major products including rice, maize corn, barley, pearl millet, wheat and dates as well as livestock. A network of canals flowed through the city, giving it the nickname “The Venice of the Middle East” at least at high tide. The only Iraqi outlet to the sea, Basra has the commercial ports of Iraq. SS (S)/SR 1