ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Local farmers in Duhok province’s Zakho say the demand for fresh milk is too high to meet, forcing many of their clients to wait for days before they can sell the sought-after product. 

Haji Rashid Tawuk has about 2,000 sheep and goats. He relies on a traditional network of clients to sell the livestock, many of whom know him personally. The personal nature of the business relationship helps with building trust, as the clients know the product is genuine and fresh. 

“We deliver the milk to their houses. There is high demand, and people come from here [Zakho] and others from Duhok,” Rashid said, explaining that some come to his farm to buy the milk while others make phone calls to request their products. 

“Sometimes they make a call, and we say ‘We do not have any milk at the moment, you have to wait for several days.’” 

He is from Tawuk village, where farmers have a total of 10,000 livestock. 

Milk and cheese are the highest in demand. Zain Kamal, another farmer, said they sell one kilogram of milk for 1,500 Iraqi dinars (about $1), and 9,000 dinars ($6) for a kilogram of cheese.

“The price is good, thank God,” he said. 

Emad Guli and his four brothers are farmers. They too use the traditional methods to milk the sheep and goats and refrain from using any tools in the process. 

“We do not have a shop. We have special clients,” Guli said, explaining that they do not have a shop but rather rely on traditional transactions. 

“The milk production, thank God, is very good this year,” he said, attributing the high production to a good rainy season. 

However, he lamented that they cannot fully reap the rewards of the rainy season because people are less inclined to buy fresh, local produce due to budget issues. 

“The only problem is that people have less purchasing power, they have less money to spend,” he said. 

The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has failed to pay the salaries of its civil servants on time and in full for a decade due to a financial crisis that deteriorated when a ruling by a Paris-based arbitration court suspended its export of oil to the international markets a year ago. The Kurdish government now relies on local income and its controversial share of the federal budget.

The situation in recent months has cautiously improved since Baghdad started sending the salaries of the Kurdistan Region’s public sector earlier this year. 

Rudaw approached the agriculture department in Zakho, but they said that they do not have an official figure for the number of livestock in their area. However, they estimated that the farmers might own 25,000 livestock. 

The Kurdish market is highly reliant on Iranian and Syrian animals. It also relies on foreign dairy products to meet the local demand. 

There used to be four dairy factories in Zakho, but only one remains open. It does not use fresh milk in its production cycle.