Kurdish Iraqi farmer Azad Muhamad has grow to be a social media star by sharing tips about rising recent fruit and greens within the sun-parched nation that’s extremely weak to local weather change.
The moustachioed 50-year-old with virtually half 1,000,000 Facebook followers posts weekly movies on matters reminiscent of defending fruit bushes, coping with bugs and serving to individuals get extra from their farms and gardens.
“They ought to make you agriculture minister,” one in all his followers, Ahmed Hassan, commented on a current video.
Muhamad additionally makes use of his in style online platform to boost awareness about defending the surroundings and the necessity to help native farmers, in his native Kurdistan area and past.
“Developed-country farmers have authorities help and harvesting machines,” mentioned Muhamad.
“Our farmers do every little thing themselves with their very own sweat – and once they lose cash on the finish of the 12 months, they begin over with the identical ardour and vitality.”
Muhamad displaying natural recent produce at his farm close to the Kurdish Iraqi city of Halabja, 300km northeast of Iraq’s capital.
He additionally has a message for authorities in Iraq, which the United Nations (UN) classifies because the world’s fifth most weak nation to local weather change and the place many are mired in poverty regardless of Iraq’s oil wealth.
“Our land is fertile, and our earth is like gold,” Muhamad informed AFP.
Therefore, he mentioned, the federal government ought to “give attention to agriculture relatively than oil, for a sustainable financial system”.
Preserving the surroundings
From his farm close to Halabja, Muhamad squats amongst grape vines and different vegetation, sporting conventional Kurdish clothes as a pal makes use of a cell phone to movie him.
Many of his followers, he mentioned, are usually not farmers however individuals who “have remodeled their roof into gardens – and that is a option to higher protect the surroundings”.
He invitations his Facebook followers to submit their questions, and says some farmers have despatched him movies of their crops, thanking him for his assist.
“That makes me very comfortable,” he mentioned.
In one video, he advises farmers to house their bushes out by simply two metres (six ft) as an alternative of 4 to maintain the soil shady and damp, defending it from the scorching summer season warmth.
Muhamad has grow to be a social media star by sharing tips about rising recent fruit and greens.
“With desertification, and low rainfall, we should change how we plant bushes,” he mentioned.
“Look at these tomatoes,” he added, gesturing at a gaggle of vegetation. “Because they’re within the shade, they’re juicy and ideal – whereas these which might be within the direct solar have been burned.”
Iraq’s northern Kurdistan area has been spared the worst results of desertification, water shortage and drought which have ravaged different elements of the nation.
“The area has excessive rainfall precipitation in comparison with the remainder of Iraq,” mentioned a 2019 research involving UN companies and the autonomous Kurdistan regional authorities.
But the report warned that “native agricultural manufacturing is in extreme competitors with overseas items with largely decrease costs”… “primarily from Turkey and Iran, whose merchandise have flooded Iraqi markets”.
It urged “extra investments” to enhance irrigation, together with water administration to advertise sustainability, to make sure the environment friendly use of sources and “mitigate the results of local weather change”.
Fresh and natural
Hamid Ismail Abdulrahman, a fellow farmer in Halabja, mentioned low water ranges in wells had impacted agricultural improvement.
Twice every week, the 47-year-old opens his farm to households who should purchase “recent and natural merchandise”, from tomatoes to corn and eggplant.
He mentioned local weather change had tremendously affected agriculture throughout Iraq, although “southern Iraq has the lion’s share of this impression, whereas within the north the impact is much less”.
With Iraq already witnessing record-low rainfall and excessive temperatures in recent times, Muhamad warned that “if the federal government does not act now and current a concrete plan… the harm can be finished”.
Muhamad has just lately opened a small instructional space on his farm, and now additionally receives visits from college college students.
He says he hopes his initiatives may have a longer-term impression.
“Some individuals go away behind a mosque” once they die, he mentioned, however “I wish to go away behind my agricultural information”. – AFP
