A report by the British newspaper "The Independent" confirmed, on Sunday, that farmers and buffalo herders in the central and southern regions of Iraq have become unsure of what the future holds for them as a result of drought and water shortage due to the Turkish dams on the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.

The report stated, "The Fertile Crescent region, on which buffalo breeders and farmers have relied for generations, is suffering from drought, which threatens their livelihoods, due to the construction of dams upstream in Turkey and on the two main rivers in Iraq, the Tigris and Euphrates, declining precipitation trends, decades of conflict and climate change."

"The severe lack of water forced him to sell their animals one by one, which is heartbreaking for their livelihood," said farmer Ahmed Abdul-Hussein from Al-Mishkhab district in Najaf governorate, adding, "We recently lost a two-month-old calf and it is painful for one of them to die due to lack of water and now we have not. We only have nine left after we had 20 buffaloes there last year."

The report stated that "the situation is worsening in the southern marshes, which are already fragile and witnessing the most severe heat wave in the past forty years, as according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), nearly 70 percent of the marshes are devoid of water."

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization, "about half of the land planted in 2020 is now taken care of throughout Iraq, but in Najaf Governorate, the situation is more serious as only 5 percent of the 2020 cultivation area is being used after rice cultivation has almost completely stopped due to Water scarcity.

Abdul Hussein indicated, "When the buffalo does not eat, it does not produce milk," adding that his income has shrunk by half, and that he struggles to buy expensive and often imported fodder, stressing by saying that "the situation is bad and we do not know what awaits us."

Source: National Iraqi News Agency