Najaf, Iraq: After watching his once-luxurious rice fields shrink in recent years due to relentless drought, Iraqi farmer Muntajer al-Joufi fought back by using tougher seeds and water-saving irrigation techniques.
This is the first time using modern techniques that consume less water to grow rice, said Joufi, 40, as he surveyed his plot of land in the central province of Najaf.
“There's a big difference” compared to flooding the fields, Jouffi said, referring to the traditional method where the land stays submerged all summer.
But four consecutive years of drought and declining rainfall have strangled rice production in Iraq, which is still recovering from years of war and chaos, and where rice and bread are staples of the diet.
The United Nations has stated that Iraq is one of the five most climate-vulnerable countries in the world.
Joufi is one of the farmers receiving support from the Ministry of Agriculture, whose experts are developing innovative methods to save Iraq's rice production.
Their work involves combining resilient rice seeds with modern irrigation systems to replace flooding methods in a country plagued by water shortages, heat waves and receding rivers.
Under the scorching Iraqi sun, with temperatures soaring toward 50 degrees Celsius (122 Fahrenheit), Jouffi walked across a muddy field to stop the malfunctioning sprinklers that spread across his one hectare (2.5 acres) of land.
Iraq's rice crops typically require 10 to 12 billion cubic meters of water over a five-month growing period.
However, experts say new methods using sprinklers and drip irrigation use 70 percent less water than traditional flooding practices, when workers must ensure fields are completely covered with water.
Now, Jouffi said, “it only takes one person to turn on the sprinklers … and the water reaches every part of the ground.”
According to the experts of the Ministry of Agriculture, during the years of drought, the area planted with rice has decreased from 30,000 hectares to only 5,000 hectares.
“Due to drought and water scarcity, we have to use modern irrigation techniques and new seeds,” said Abdel Kazem Jawad Musa, who leads a team of such experts.
They are looking for the perfect combination using different types of sprinklers, drip irrigation, and five different varieties of seeds that are drought tolerant and consume less water.
“We want to know which seed genotypes respond best” to irrigation using sprinklers instead of flooding, Mousse said.
Last year, al-Ghari — a genotype derived from Iraq's prized amber rice — and South Asian jasmine seeds produced good results when cultivated with small sprinklers, so experts offered farmers like Jouffi the combination in hopes of the best.
“At the end of the season, we will come up with recommendations,” Moussa said, adding that he hoped to introduce three new types of seeds during the short planting season next year.
In addition to the drought, officials blame upstream dams built by Iraq's powerful neighbors Iran and Turkey for dramatically lowering water levels in the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, which have irrigated Iraq for millennia.
Water shortages have forced many farmers to leave their lands, and authorities have drastically reduced farming activity to ensure enough drinking water for Iraq's 43 million people.
In 2022, authorities limited rice-growing areas to 1,000 hectares in the southern provinces of Najaf and Diwaniyah, the main land for planting amber rice.
Recently, Diwaniyah farmers staged a protest urging the government to allow them to cultivate their land after a two-year ban.
But while abundant rains this winter have helped alleviate water scarcity, authorities have allowed them to cultivate rice on only 30 percent of their land.
“The last good year was 2020,” said farmer Fayez al-Yasiri at his farm in Diwaniya, where he hopes to grow amber and jasmine rice.
Iraq is the second-largest oil producer in the OPEC cartel, but despite vast oil and gas reserves, it remains dependent on imports to meet its energy needs and faces chronic power cuts.
Yasiri asked the authorities to help, especially by providing farmers with electricity and pesticides.
His brother Bassem Yasiri was less optimistic. He said, 'Due to lack of water, agricultural work in this area has come to an end.
