Workshop Proceedings - Inter Islamic Network on Space Sciences ...

Theme 2: Agriculture Landuse
According to the data of the Ministry of Agriculture of
Iraq, there will be High percentage decrease in the wheat
production of Iraq in the next decade. Although Barley is
a fundamental component of the annual cereal production
of Iraq, no trend has been noticed to increase its
production. Iraq has long been known as a country in
which agriculture production plays a significant role in its
trade and which is self-sufficient in its demands for
agricultural products and even known as an exporting
country in Past. Especially for wheat and Barley, Iraq are
becoming an importing country, indicating that it will
become more dependent on other countries with respect
to main agricultural products over the next decade which
means that Iraq will be not Active in the field of food
security.
Conclusion
Invert Class 1976
Military activities in all forms are they bombing, building
trenches, or the use of heavy machinery, have damaged
the surface layer of soil in all parts of Iraq and especially
in its desert areas. Plant cover in the desert, which was
grown over the years, has been damaged. This plant cover
cannot be restored without launching scientific
programmes on a wide scale. The mass migration (ca.
500.000 people) from southern Iraq following the Gulf
War in 1991 has been reported by the Government to
have created severe degradation of the natural resources
of southern Iraq.
It is believed that all the agricultural structure, from
government to public, has to be re-organized for
sustainable use of the natural resources. A comprehensive
new agenda is needed to protect the sustainability of the
ecosystem and to prevent land degradation and
desertification.
The relevant Government agencies need rational land use
planning at a national level with the purpose of the
conservation of the high quality lands and landscape.
However, the lack of information on land use planning
for all cities should be urgently solved. Legislation for
preventing desertification together with developing an
increased awareness for the participation of the people
in combating desertification. Education of farmers
particularly for the implementation of environmental
friendly agricultural practices should be undertaken as
specified by the OECD. Thus, with appropriate legislative
precautions and economic subsidies the soil and water
resources will most probably be sustainable used in spite
of the pressure of increasing population. However, the
negative factors governing the development of
desertification seem to be hard to cope with. This
eventually leads to the increasing hazards of erosion,
salinity and depletion of nutrients. Thus, the degradation
of the agro-ecosystem causes the loss of soil and land in
the country. The recent decrease in the traditionally high
wheat production of Iraq is a good example of the
drawbacks of developing land degradation.
Iraq is one of the countries, which has considerable
experience in the development of land reclamation
processes (i.e. pasture plantation and reforestation).
However, these activities could not be adequately
performed due to the lack of socio-economical conditions.
The analyses of global climate changes have indicated
that in the next fifty years, the factors increasing
desertification will be more effective than the efforts to
mitigate desertification. Within the framework of the
international desertification program, priority should be
given to concepts such as cooperation between countries,
providing financial, technical and technological supports.
Moreover, research focusing on the development of water
saving technologies against desertification should be
encouraged. In future, desalination of drainage water,
development of irrigation technologies, and the usage of
salt-tolerant genetically modified plant species will be
extremely important in the attempts to preventing land
degradation.
In addition to the recent war and destruction that
accompanied the Department of State by the U.S.
occupation troops and its war machine on the agricultural
land also contributed to terrorism over the past years
through the forced displacement of peasants from their
villages and leave them to the farmland without the
service or the exploitation of her, which led to the
displacement of thousands of peasants and change the
type of business that they practice to make a living, all of
this and other reasons led to the low productivity of
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