AgriLife News

Roots to Peace

Jwad Kadhem, a farmer in Abu Ghraib, is one of thousands of Iraqis who have benefited from Texas A&M Agriculture's efforts to help stabilize Iraq's agricultural sector over the past four years.

"I learned better ways to plant my crops to control weeds and insects," Jwad related by phone in Arabic to Dr. Ma’ad Mohammed, an assistant research scientist at the Norman Borlaug Institute for International Agriculture at Texas A&M. "And I was introduced to a new variety of potato that I didn’t know about, which produced about 60% more than the potato I was planting."

Since 2003, Texas A&M faculty and staff have been in Iraq, working with farmers, government agencies, businesses, university faculty, students and others to improve the country’s agricultural capacity. Efforts began with an agreement between the U.S. Agency for International Development and Texas A&M's International Agriculture Office, now the Borlaug Institute.

"A&M was chosen to lead a consortium of universities and government agencies as part of a $107 million project to assess and prioritize ways to rebuild the Iraqi agricultural sector," says Dr. Edwin Price, associate vice chancellor and director of the Borlaug Institute.

As part of this Agriculture Reconstruction and Development Initiative, the consortium conducted crop technology demonstrations across 16 Iraqi governorates. Iraqi farmers were introduced to U.S. methods of planting, irrigation, fertilization, integrated pest management, and other modern production and management practices.

As a result, from 2003 to 2006, Iraqi farmers saw an overall production increase of 90% for rice, 200% for tomatoes, 150% for potatoes, 200% for maize, and 25%–35% for wheat. Other areas of effort included crop-soil-water relationships, marshland use, private sector development, livestock improvement, high-value agriculture, and government-to-market transition.

In late 2006, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced a new $5.3 million Iraq Agricultural Extension Revitalization project, in which Texas AgriLife Extension Service would lead a team of five land-grant institutions to improve Iraq's agricultural extension and training. The project also has components for improving women's health and nutrition and for developing youth leadership.

"We're working with the Iraqi Extension Program, which has professionals throughout Iraq," says Bob Whitney, team leader for the project. "They reach about half of the Iraqi workforce, so showing them new agricultural methods and technology they can teach to others will significantly help agricultural revitalization." Whitney is a former Texas Cooperative Extension agent for agriculture in Comanche County, Texas.

Working with the Iraqi Ministry of Agriculture, Whitney, who is now based in Jordan, conducted his first train-the-trainer seminar in Egypt. Twenty-five Iraqi university trainers and 73 trainees participated. Texas A&M's primary areas of responsibility for the project are livestock and poultry production, animal health, dairy production, and grazingland improvement.

In spring 2007, Texas A&M faculty and staff traveled to Iraq at the request of the U.S. Department of Defense to make recommendations for improving agricultural employment in Iraq over a nine-month period.

"Through these efforts in Iraq and other countries, we not only help others; we help ourselves," says Price. "The future of agriculture in our own country depends partly upon taking advantage of opportunities for teaching, research and extension in other nations."