MP Warns Agricultural Sector is at Risk as Rural Population Decreases

Kurdish Agencies

Kurdish farmers harvesting their vigitables.

A lawmaker warns that the Kurdistan Region has a lesser rural population than Iraq due to a lack of government planning, emphasising the necessity of giving villages and rural regions more attention in order to revitalise and develop them.

The Iraqi Ministry of Planning in the federal government recently released the statistics of the General Population and Housing Census last year, with numbers showing that 29.83% of Iraqis live in villages and 70.17% of them reside in cities. In contrast, 84.57% of the Kurdistan Region's population lives in urban areas, while 15.43% of its population lives in rural areas.

Gharib Ahmed, MP of Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) bloc, told PUKMEDIA: "The Ministry of Planning's data are concerning because, as a result of the Kurdistan Regional Government's (KRG) lack of planning, the proportion of people living in cities is significantly higher than that of those living in villages and rural areas."

He went on to say that the KRG needs to focus more on rural areas, villages, and the agricultural sector, stressing that this issue should be considered an economic issue and cooperate with the villagers to reconstruct villages and help their residents.

He further stated: “We can see that the Iraqi government gives its rural population a lot of attention, so even though the KRG Ministry of Agriculture is still working to support the agricultural sector, more people should be encouraged to move to the villages. If the Kurdistan Region doesn't do the same as Iraq, the gap will only widen over the coming years."

The PUK lawmaker also clarified that the KRG needs to establish new procedures and mechanisms for providing support to villages because, in contrast to prior years, Iraq has taken significant and serious steps in this file, and the effects of these measures have become evident in reality. 

"It is still not late to begin implementing the Deputy Prime Minister of the Kurdistan Region's well-thought-out plan to revitalise villages, rural areas, and the agricultural sector," he said.

The KRG Ministry of Agriculture has made good progress in meeting the needs of farmers and marketing their product when harvest time comes. However, in order to make agricultural wealth a viable alternative to oil wealth, the KRG must also provide other essential services to villages and rural areas, like roads, and other services related to reconstructing rural areas.



PUKMEDIA