According to data from the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) Agriculture and Water Resources Ministry, domestic rice production has nearly tripled over the past two years reaching 13.485 tons 2018, up from 2016's 4.939 tons.
"Due to a growing demand for domestic rice, farmers have turned to plowing their lands with rice," Ahmed Kamiran, the head of Agricultural Services at the ministry, told Rudaw. "In the past, only six to eight thousand dunams of lands were used to be planted with rice, but the plantations have doubled in size over the past two years.”
A dunam is a measuring unit used in the Middle East that equals 2,500 square meters.
Kurdistan Region’s weather and land are suitable for growing rice, which allows the land allotted for planting the grain to increase. The ministry estimates that each individual consumes 38.5 kilos of rice a year.
The population of the Kurdistan Region reached 5,800,000 in 2018, according to the Kurdistan Regional Statistics Office.
Excluding displaced people and refugees, the Kurdistan Region needs 227,000 tons of rice a year, six percent of which could be covered by the domestic product, per the ministry’s data.
The bulk of rice planted in Kurdistan are of the round, short-grain variety.
In terms of output and size of farmlands that have rice, Duhok comes in first. Last year, rice farmers in the province planted 11.726 dunams of lands with rice, with their output reaching 9.382 tons, amounting to 69.5 percent of the overall product in Kurdistan.
The five locations of Duhok which are suitable for planting rice include Akre, Bardarash, Sheikhan, and Amedi.
"In 2017, Duhok farmers had planted 9.764 dunams of lands with rice, having had output of 7,811 tons of rice, while in 2018 they cultivated 11.726 dunams of land with rice with an output of 9.382 tons," Khidir Dewali Abdulla, the head of the planning and follow-up department at the Ministry of Agriculture, told Rudaw.
Abdulla is optimistic that the total output of Duhok province will reach 15,800 tons in 2019.
"Our target for the next four years is to double in size what we have now through finding market for our domestic rice in and outside Kurdistan," he said.
Translated by Zhelwan Z. Wali
