http://www.grain.org/bio-ipr/?id=563

Salt of this earth

David Enders

The National (Abu Dhabi)

13 March 2009
http://www.thenational.ae/article/20090313/REVIEW/863405380 /1008

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Iraqi farmers are leaving the countryside looking for other work, exacerbating the problem of land neglect (deserted land often becomes even less productive) -- and the post-invasion crisis of internal displacement. The Ministry of Agriculture is so concerned that it has been providing farmers with interest-free loans. But it remains the case that, as Jabbar puts it: "Three days of work on the farms is equivalent to one day of working construction."

This is more than a bad year, and the explanation goes beyond drought. As many observers have noted, Iraq's current agricultural disaster was triggered in part by the US occupation. Paul Bremer, the head of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), and his advisers were proud champions of the free market mentality. After taking power in 2003, they immediately set about trying to dismantle and privatise every Iraqi state industry. At a May 2003 press conference, Bremer announced the removal of all protective tariffs on imports into the country. "Iraq is open for business," he declared, and ever since the country has been flooded with cheap imports from around the world.

"Imports from Syria flood the market and we cannot compete," Jabbar says.

The ineptitude of the CPA has been widely documented. But to simply blame Bremer is to overlook the nearly three-decade-long history of how greed, both international and domestic, destroyed Iraq's farms.