Kurdistan’s homegrown fruit & veg exceed domestic demand: ministry spox

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Kurdistan Region’s farmers are growing more than one million tons of fruit and vegetables this year, exceeding domestic demand, a spokesperson for the agriculture ministry said on Saturday. 

“About 50,000 farmers have planted grain this year and more than a million tons of fruits and vegetables will be produced this year, exceeding domestic demand," ministry spokesperson Hiwa Ali told Rudaw Radio. 

The agriculture ministers of the Kurdistan Region and Iraq have reached an agreement regarding exporting produce to each other’s markets as needed, Ali said.

The Kurdistan Region has also worked on exporting its produce to other countries. In December, Kurdistan Region’s pomegranates were sold in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) for the first time.

“We now have an agreement with the UAE to export Kurdish farmers' products. We are working to export poultry products to the Gulf countries and the UAE," Ali said. 

According to the spokesperson, the Kurdistan Region has 42 agricultural products and most of them are now at a level of self-sufficiency, or more as in the case with poultry.

Despite having fertile soil, Kurdish farmers often struggle with selling their produce. In 2020, farmers trampled their own tomatoes in protest over low prices, and potato farmers dumped their produce in the street, protesting the presence of banned imports that pushed their fruit and vegetables out of the market. 

The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has named agriculture as a sector it wants to develop as part of efforts to diversify the economy away from oil. 

Ali said that they have asked the KRG to reinstate the agriculture ministry’s budget, which was suspended due to the financial crisis and resulted in farmers not getting the aid they need from the ministry.