Baghdad _ Agencies
An official of the Iraqi agriculture ministry said Saturday that the country´s cultivated areas had dropped by half, compared with last year, following the drought and the lower levels of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.
The ministry announced the ban on the cultivation of rice, maize and some other crops that require much water due to severe drought this year.
"If we want to compare the areas planted this year with last year the damage is up to 50 percent," said Mahdi al-Qaysi, Undersecretary of agriculture.
"The water plan exempted some vegetables because there was not enough water to cover the summer plan," he said.
According to the authorities, the losses to the rice-growing workers will be 34 million euros this year.
In Nasiriyah, more than 400 families were displaced from their villages to settle in areas with better water sources for their herds, according to local officials.
Iraq, called the "Mesopotamia" relative to the Tigris and Euphrates, suffers from a severe drop in water levels for years.
Apart from the lack of rainfall, the main cause of the drought remains the diversion and cutting of rivers that pour into the Tigris and Euphrates by Turkey and Iran, according to experts.
Turkey has also recently embarked on the operation of the Elisa Dam on the Tigris River, a blow to Iraq´s agriculture, which will show its repercussions in various aspects of life.
This raised the anger of Iraqis and the concern of the authorities, who were already facing problems due to chronic shortages of electric power.
