Iraq’s Parliament decides to increase prices of wheat, barley – rice, bought from farmers.

MISSAN / IraqiNews.com: The Iraqi Parliament has decided in its Thursday session to increase the prices of wheat, barley and rice, bought from peasants, the Parliament’s Agricluture Committee Member, Karim Alewi al-Mohammadawi said.   “The Parliament has taken a majority decision, in its Thursday session, to increase the prices of buying rice to one million dinars per ton, wheat to 800,000 dinars per ton and barely to 700,000 per ton,” Mohammadawi told IraqiNews.com news agency.   He said the decision was taken to “encourage the peasants to plant the said strategic crops and avoid causing losses by them, due to the prices previously decided by the Ministry of Agriculture and to limit the immigration of peasants from the countryside to the cities.”   The Ministry of Agriculture had defined in a previous decision the prices for the purchase of the three locally-produced strategic crops, supported by the Council of Ministers.   The prices were 720,000 dinars for a ton of locally-produced 1 st class wheat, 620,000 dinars for a 2 nd class, whilst it defined the ton of a third-class wheat to 520,000 dinars.     The price of a ton of barely was defined at 520,000 dinars, whilst the ton of 1 st class “anbar” rice was defined at 750,000 dinars, whilst the other types of rice were defined at 700,000 dinars per ton.   Amara, the center of Missan province, is 390 km to the south of Baghdad .   SKH (IT) 562