U.S. officials forecast that about 2.5 million acres of wheat will be harvested this season, nearly 50% less than last year. In the northern provinces of Tamim, Nineveh and Irbil, where farmers rely heavily on rain to water their crops, the amount is expected to drop as much as 80%.
The effect on the barley crop, which herders feed to their sheep, has been even worse. Many farmers have been forced to sell some of their animals to buy feed for the rest.
Nearly 4,000 sheep were on offer recently at the livestock market in the northern Kurdish town of Maidan, where buyers and sellers haggled amid swirling clouds of dust, kicked up by the bleating animals.
Rasheed Tahir had brought 250 of his 400 sheep to sell that day, but was disappointed by the prices, which have dropped about 50% this year.
"My relationship with my sheep goes back a long time," he said glumly. "I used to care for them like a father would his children. . . . But because of the drought, I have no choice but to sell them."
The effects won't be confined to this season. Farmers hold back a portion of their harvest to use as seed for the next crop. But because production is down, many will have little or nothing to plant and no money to purchase seed.
Bahadili, the agriculture minister, said the government would take steps to help farmers, including digging more wells and subsidizing the cost of seed, animal feed, fertilizer and pesticides. But farmers said they had heard such promises before.
U.S. officials blame the sluggish government response on a combination of bureaucratic malfunction, corruption and lingering insecurity in some areas, where Iraqi officials refuse to travel.
Ahmed, a Sunni, said he expected nothing from the Kurdish-dominated provincial authorities in Kirkuk or the Shiite-led government in Baghdad. The future, he said, "is in God's hands."
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alexandra.zavis@latimes.com
Times staff writers Caesar Ahmed and Raheem Salman in Baghdad and special correspondent Asso Ahmed in Maidan contributed to this report.
