The Fishy Story of Kurdistan

By Aram Kakakhan

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Only about 10 percent of the fish consumed in Iraq’s Kurdistan Region is produced locally, with the rest imported from other parts of Iraq as well as neighboring Iran and Turkey, a knowledgeable official said.

According to Azad Khoshnaw, information director of livestock and veterinary services in the Kurdistan Region, the autonomous enclave cannot produce more than 7,000 tons of fish a year, which is “much less than international standards.”

“The amount of fish taken from local farms, lakes and rivers makes up for only 10 percent of the demand in the Kurdistan Region,” said Khoshnaw.

“The other 90 percent is being imported from Iran, Turkey and southern Iraq,” he said. “Part of that is sent to the markets of southern Iraq, so this does not mean it was all consumed in the Kurdistan Region,” he explained.

In the first three months of this year, around 3 tons of fish and other types of seafood were imported, he said, explaining that there was no local production during that time because “fish in this season move into deeper waters and do not come up to feed very often.”

He said there were 305 license fish farms in the Kurdistan Region, but there are also unlicensed ones that still receive help, in the form of fish food, from the government.

“The government aids the fish farms that use water from lakes and rivers, but not one that use artesian wells,” Khoshnaw said.

Officials say that demand for fish in the autonomous enclave in northern Iraq, especially carp, has grown incredibly. Carp comes mainly from the more southern regions of Iraq, because carp fishing is not allowed all year round in the Kurdistan Region.

To illustrate how demand has grown, restaurant owner Shakhwan Muhammad says that 20 years ago he was selling 40 kilograms of fish per day from a cart in Erbil’s Tairawa bazaar. Today, his restaurant in the same locality serves 2,000 kilos a day to hungry customers.

Hussein Tahir, director of the Fish Resource Project in Ainkawa, said that fish farming in the Kurdistan Region was not an industry yet.

During fish spawning, a great part of the fish eggs are destroyed by snakes and frogs, and for this reason the fish resources projects are attempting to prevent natural fertilization and follow the artificial method.

“The biggest animal farms in the world are fish farms for three main reasons: fish can be consumed when it is dead, it spawns in large amounts and one kilo of fish food produces an equivalent amount of fish meat,” Tahir said.