Shafaq News monitors a “dangerous indicator” in the Iraqi census that many people did not notice
Shafaq News monitors a “dangerous indicator” in the Iraqi census that many people did not notice
2025-02-24 06:05
Shafaq News/ The results of the general population census in Iraq raised a “dangerous indicator” according to the parliamentary Agriculture, Water and Marshlands Committee and experts in agriculture and economics, who called for the necessity of developing a national strategy and adopting balanced government policies and a serious stance based on correct scientific foundations to address them.
The Iraqi Ministry of Planning announced today, Monday, the basic results of the general population census, which showed that the country’s population is 46 million and 118 thousand people, while the population is distributed according to the environment as 70.17% in urban areas and 29.83% in rural areas in Iraq, and 84.57% in urban areas and 15.43% in rural areas in the Kurdistan Region.
Rural about 30%
Member of the Parliamentary Committee on Agriculture, Water and Marshes, Ibtisam Al-Hilali, says, “The presence of only 30% of rural lands is a dangerous indicator at a time when agriculture is considered a permanent source of oil and a basic resource for supporting the economy, as major countries depend on agriculture and provide support for both the production and animal aspects.”
Al-Hilali added to Shafaq News Agency: “As for Iraq, agriculture has been subjected to great neglect for years, which led to the migration of rural residents to the city for the purpose of work, which caused the migration of agricultural lands, in addition to the bulldozing of agricultural lands and orchards, which greatly destroyed the agricultural infrastructure.”
Al-Hilali stresses the importance of “continuous support for agriculture in order for the farmer to return to his land, because the population should be distributed 50% in villages and 50% in cities, to maintain balance, as well as issuing laws to support agriculture. Recently, there has been a major trend to support farmers through irrigation systems, fertilizers and seeds, and there are two important laws that have been voted on.”
Regarding these two laws, Al-Hilali explains, “The first law is to grant ownership of 10 dunams without compensation, such that if a farmer has a contract for 20 dunams, he is granted ownership of 10 dunams of them, and he buys the rest of the land at a symbolic price, and then he adds all 20 dunams of land to his own. As for the second law, it is the Agricultural Full-Time Workers Law No. 24 of 2014, which was voted on last year. In this law, the agricultural full-time worker was given 50 dunams, a water share, and a loan in order for the farmer to return to farming and hold on to his land.”
Causes of rural migration
For his part, agricultural expert Khattab Al-Damman believes that “the increase in the proportion of urban areas at the expense of rural areas is a natural result of the practices that the country has witnessed over the past two decades. Since 2003, there have been large-scale encroachments on agricultural lands and orchards, and they have been converted into residential areas as a result of the high prices of land allocated for housing and real estate, and the state’s inability to provide plots of land or build vertical residential complexes that meet the population’s need for housing. Therefore, land has been converted from agricultural use to real estate or residential use.”
The guarantor added to the agency, “The second reason is the deterioration of the agricultural sector, which has been suffering from competition from foreign crops for a long time, in addition to the high costs of production, and farmers being exposed to large losses in some seasons, and thus many of them abandoned agriculture and resorted to government jobs, especially in the field of work in the armed forces.”
He continues: “The expansion of the government sector in terms of appointments and the absorption of employees in government departments has attracted large percentages of the population in the outskirts of Baghdad, for example, into the city. The same applies to the rest of the governorates, where job opportunities are usually available in the governorate centers, whether in the public or private sector. Therefore, the trend has become towards the cities in order to obtain job opportunities and improve their conditions.”
The agricultural expert warns that “the continuation of the process of converting agricultural lands into residential purposes and not addressing the challenges of the agricultural sector will increase the percentage of urban residents at the expense of rural residents, and will lead to more neglect in the agricultural sector, which confirms the need to develop treatments and a serious stance based on correct scientific foundations to address them.”
Among other reasons that led to rural migration, economic researcher Ahmed Eid explains that “rural migration is a dangerous indicator of the urban expansion that the country is witnessing. This migration is due to several reasons, most notably internal migration resulting from the drought that villages and rural areas are witnessing, in addition to chronic government neglect and rampant corruption in state institutions, and the lack of comprehensive and effective solutions to this issue. All of these factors led to the decline of basic services in rural areas and the collapse of the agricultural and industrial sectors that were a major source of livelihood for rural residents.”
A transformation that carries great risks
Eid told Shafaq News Agency, “This demographic shift carries great risks, most notably the increasing pressure on the infrastructure of cities, the high unemployment rates, and the militarization of society, with most farmers resorting to military jobs, in addition to the increase in slums and the worsening housing crisis in cities. In contrast, rural areas suffer from a decline in agricultural production, the spread of poverty, and the absence of development investments in them.”
He stressed that “if this phenomenon continues without balanced and serious government policies, we may witness more mass migration to cities, erosion of agricultural land, and poverty rates rising worse than they are now, which requires the development of a national drought strategy that eliminates corruption, restores stability, and provides opportunities for sustainable development and decent living in villages and rural areas, to ensure a balanced population distribution and achieve sustainable development throughout the country.”
A previous report by Shafaq News Agency indicated that despite the importance of the agricultural sector in Iraq for developing the country’s economy, maintaining food security, and being a source of livelihood for many citizens, it faces many challenges, especially in recent years, most notably climate extremism, the water crisis, and the cost of production.
The report, quoting specialists, explains that green spaces in Iraq have decreased from about 50 to 17 percent as a result of climate change and the failure of citizens and responsible authorities to provide green spaces.
The increase in urban activity at the expense of green spaces in Iraq has led to the disappearance of agricultural lands and their conversion into residential and commercial lands, which has had a negative impact on the environment and increased air pollution and climate change.
The Iraqi Ministry of Agriculture confirms that the country needs to plant more than 15 billion trees to secure a vegetation cover that will eliminate desertification, while specialists believe that reviving and rehabilitating forests and planting areas with these numbers of trees in the coming years can restore some of the clean air to the Iraqi atmosphere, after it was polluted by harmful waste from exhausts, factories, and others.
Climate change has hit Iraq hard in the past few years in an unprecedented manner, as it is the fifth country most affected by global climate change, according to the Iraqi Ministry of Environment and the United Nations.
Iraq loses 100,000 dunams (a dunam is 1,000 square metres) annually due to desertification, and the water crisis has caused agricultural land to decrease by 50 percent, according to official statements.
According to estimates by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the forest areas in Iraq now constitute only 8,250 square kilometers, or 2% of the total area of the country.
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