Soran farmers have bare fields after dry winter and spring

BRADOST, Kurdistan Region — After a winter with low snowfall and a comparatively dry spring, farmers in the Soran area of Erbil province don’t have the water needed to plant crops. 

“Nearly 150 to 160 farmers, or even families, used to make a living on these lands,” said farmer Osman Hamid, standing in his bare field where last year he grew tomatoes at the foot of Hassan Beg mountain.

The snow-fed mountain streams that he usually depends on to water his fields are flowing at a trickle this year. According to the local agriculture directorate, the area received 1.5 metres of snow this winter, down from five metres the year before. 

It was also a dry spring. Just 700 millimetres of rain fell, nearly half the 1,200 millimetres the area received last year.

“[Some famers] went to plough some land on this hill yesterday. They couldn’t because of the drought.  The land couldn’t be ploughed,” said Kadhim Assad, mukhtar (chief) of Hastan village.

There are more than 2,000 dunams of cultivated land in the area, but local officials expect half that will produce crops this year.

“We expect the cultivated lands to drop by half, compared to last year. The farmers mostly depend on the springs. The spring waters have dropped due to lack of snowfall,” said Hakim Abdullah, head of Soran Agriculture Department. He suggested developing an irrigation system to water the fields, rather than the traditional dependence on the mountain springs. 

It is a dry year across the Kurdistan Region. Shepherds from the Garmiyan areas have moved their flocks north into Sulaimani province, searching for water.


Translation and video editing by Sarkawt Mohammed