Abdullah Hayas has harvested 50 tons of wheat, but the Diyala silo refuses to accept his crop and has also prohibited him from transferring his wheat to Sulaimani’s Kalar district, which is controlled by the Kurdistan Region.
“We have this problem that the Diyala silo is not fixing for us, because our lands are inherited and because Article 140 is still not implemented. We demand that they provide us with a solution,” Hayas told Rudaw on Friday.
Article 140 of the constitution lays out a plan to resolve disputed ownership of land that was part of the Baathist-era Arabization policy. In Khanaqin, 4,000 farmers are excluded from the agricultural zone map annually by Diyala authorities under the pretext that the farmers do not have property deeds. As a result, their wheat is not accepted.
“Our problem is that the silo has not accepted our wheat until now. Our wheat is under the sun and we are sitting here like guards,” said Jamil Adnan, another Khanaqin farmer.
Farmer Adnan Mahmoud fears he will take a big financial hit if his wheat is not accepted.
“If our wheat is refused, we will suffer great losses. Chemicals are expensive, everything is expensive,” he said.
Diyala authorities have accepted less than 5,000 tons of wheat out of a total of 50,000 tons produced this year by Khanaqin’s farmers, according to the head of the district’s agricultural department.
“The problem of wheat acceptance at Diyala silo for Khanaqin farmers and surrounding areas repeats every year. Not a single year passes that they say we have solved this issue,” Kamaran Abdullah told Rudaw.
The Iraqi government subsidizes wheat production in the country and the state-backed price is often double what farmers would receive if they chose to sell their crops in the local market.
In addition, Baghdad frequently accuses Erbil of illegally importing wheat from neighboring countries and then claiming that it was produced domestically. Iraq, therefore, does not purchase all the crops that come from the Kurdistan Region.
Hunar Hamid contributed to this report.
