SWOT analysis about agricultural situation in Kurdistan-Iraq

SWOT analysis about agricultural situation in Kurdistan-Iraq

Strengths:
1-labour force: most of agricultural labor force consisted on traditionally workers that have permanent or temporary activities according to size of their land and also profitability of it , it is worthy to mention that after 90s the number of labors and farmers declined mostly because of bad economic and socio-politic problems that workers of this sector faced .

2-fertile land: Kurdistan has most fertile land in the region and world , historically land has occupied the main factor of life in Kurdistan through agriculture ,and helped Kurds to be self-sufficient .according to ministry of agriculture statistics there is a 1535795 acres of arable land is available which is the best source to take advantage of to help growing economy.

3-land reform: since Iraqi revolution till now Iraq in general and Kurdistan in particular faces several different kind of land reforms , mainly because of different kind of political agendas. But after 90s government policies went to concentrating on private sector and regulating such policies to authorize people to posses farms and land and take advantage of it and also changing the family-farm small size of farms with traditional techniques to large-size farm with advance technology and increase production.

4-experts: agricultural experts in Kurdistan mainly are form ministry of agriculture by taking some employees to certain courses in different countries like Italy as general manager of planning department mentioned , however we can find some traditional farmers that have certain knowledge about agricultural production that earn this by life time working in this sector and also graduated non experienced student from agriculture college of main three universities, that most of them either are simple employers or working different kind of works , mainly because they can not find a suitable job simply because of small size of this sector that cannot handle big number of experts

5-water resources: this factor is a big advantage of Kurdistan region and mountainous Kurdistan Region is rich with water resources that irrigates most big farms. with a good rain rains specially snows of big mountains near the border of Iran and turkey like (qandil and halgurd and others) and crossing the to big rivers and small rivers such as big and small Zab and sirwan river and storage of big amount of underground water resource that are easy to get.

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Weakness:
Capital availability:
One of the Kurdistans growing economy problem is the lack of capital and investment in all economic sectors and agriculture in particular. Most of investment held by government expenditures and because of small rate of profitability framers have always suffering on lack of capital to inject on their business . private sector also had not mentioned effect in this problem

Technology and production techniques :
Technology along with the competitive conditions constitute the core of supply side of agriculture. To mention the most favorable subjects in agriculture economics researches like: product supply, technical change , the competitive position of agriculture, return to scale and so on ( agricultural economics: Bruce L. Gardner and Gordon c. Rausser) that minimize the uncertainty and risk in agriculture production and maximizing the production scale

Lack of incentives:
Incentive always occupied an important factor to encourage private and public sector to certain activity. Unfortunately agriculture investment and production suffers from low incentives for farmers and investors, the agricultural theme ultimately concentrates on agricultural imports rather that production because of huge profitability that exist on imports and trades.

Corruption:
Corruption is a virus that suffers Kurdistan economy and agriculture in particular . that includes government sector which allows certain part of people to benefit from illegal activities that concern particular advantage of this people rather that public interest like giving land to people through government to certain group for investment but they occupied those lands without any mentionable effect and allowing imports on some agricultural items for particular interest that affect negatively on local production.

Storage facilities:
General manager of planning department of agriculture told me that there is a lack of storage facilities in Kurdistan region and investing on this will helps managing imports and protection of agricultural products.

Experts and research on agriculture:
I have had a meeting with a student who tried to get a master degree on agriculture colleague in salahidin university, she was insufficient about the teachers and lack of statistics and researches in his major and also mentioned the hardly fundable data's . according to her point of view there is more then 60 student graduating on agriculture college of Salahidin university without enough theoretically and practical knowledge , she claim university and teachers also to not participating enough on agricultural researches.as a stock of knowledge grows the opportunities to produce experts will grows, of course the use of imported technologies will be more productive.

Water distribution and protection:

The effects of billions of dollars worth of irrigation projects taking place in and around Kurdistan may both help and hurt the region. Northern Iraq's mountainous Kurdistan Region is rich with water resources that face internal and external threats. Underground water is overused and dams of neighboring countries and massive irrigation projects block surface water. Rivers passing through Kurdistan Region are under threat by neighboring countries.
Only 25% of water from Kurdistan's big rivers, including Sirwan, Small Zab and Big Zab, could be saved in two dam-made lakes. The first two mostly spring from Iranian land.(Iraq update wbsite) "What is important is that an adequate budget be provided for carrying out the dam projects and government will consequently protect underground water and could help to gather drinking water, irrigate land, and possibly become resort areas.
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Opportunities:
Government self sufficient policies:
I read a recently published article in which Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) had underlined their commitments to investing in Kurdistan’s agriculture and agri-food sector. The truth of the matter was that the KRG had asked private companies both multinational and local to reform Kurdistan’s agriculture and agri-food sector. Other than stating that Kurdistan farmers need modern equipments for harvesting and production there was nothing else stated in the form of a clear vision for either the short term or the long term of Kurdistan agriculture and agri-food sector. president barzani also put his concerns for self sufficient policy to protect Kurdish people from external threats . prove for this:
Speech by KRG Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani:We in the government are ready to work closely with the private sector to issue necessary recommendations. And we are ready to promote relevant draft laws to be sent to Parliament for approval in order to provide the necessary legal support, because our programmes should be complementary..

Rising population and demand:
According to currently available statistics the number of the population of the region in 2008 is around 4.4 million person and by adding annual increasing rate which is 3% which increases demand. Another factor is the increasing the income of people specially after 2003 the demand of agricultural products both on animal and plant product increased that push investors to invest in this factor .

Agriculture industry:
Government self sufficient policies opened a door for private sector to invest in agricultural industry and its also encourages inflow of FDI to bring their technology here and train Kurdish stuffs to have advance technology and experts and this effects this sector and other sector positively by reducing the unemployment rate and will open the door for starting expots.
Export:
The Ministry of Agriculture always encourages private sectors and foreign investors to invest in Kurdistan's agricultural field so that Kurdistan can become an agriculture exporter within 10 years, said Anwar Omar Qadir, the ministry's Director of Planning.
A French delegation of agriculture experts met this week with Kurdistan Agriculture Minister Abdul Aziz Tayyeb to study the possibility of planting grape orchards in the region; the minister told them that the region's land is appropriate for planting 82 different kinds of grapes.(iraq update website)
FDI:
The parliament of Kurdistan improved new investment law that allow foreigners to make direct investments in Kurdistan. The implementation of the new law is expected to actively support the Kurdistan rebuilding process as a result of the flow of foreign capital into Kurdistan. If this strategy go well with this new bad economic crises Kurdistan will available to create and healthy environment to FDI investore to come to here and invest here. Because the private sectore should handle must of new strategy and by this Kurdistan would take advantage of foreign technology and expertise and will have huge impact our agriculture sector.



Threats:
Imports:
We have to face this vast threat Within our programs, we must pay attention to local production. We must encourage and promote the private sector, find markets for these goods, initiate agro-industries and also establish domestic food industries while protecting local products in the face of large quantities of imports and commodities from outside. almost 90% of our consumption products came from outside, facing this big challenge is the hardest process to treat our sick importer economy.

Climate change:
It’s a universal threat but Kurdistan also face this problem by decreasing the rain and snow falling during previous several years. But it may became a problem in long term because in short term we have enough underground water resources to go along with Kurdistan short term strategies
Security:
In 2008 by Turkish army threats was enough to affect small Kurdistan market. The market activities was slow down to the degree that all whole seller and retail seller felt it . in my point of view its right that neighboring country policies have a great impact on economic activities in Kurdistan but its mainly we have not just political security but economic security as well with all dimensions like food security and industry security and so on that’s why KRG tries to take certain policies this year to decreasing this countries influences as prime minister mentioned in his speech in 27 January this year: We in the Council of Ministers have decided to make this year a year for the rehabilitation of the agricultural sector, the realization of a policy of self-sufficiency, and working towards ensuring sustainable food security in a short period of time.
Rural-urban migration:
In the late 1990s, a lot of farmers abandoned their farms and villages and came to the cities. The region's Ministry of Agriculture is studying several plans to expand agriculture by restoring life to the countryside and encouraging farmers to return to their villages by providing them with pickup trucks to transport their products and building greenhouses; meanwhile, however, agriculture experts say the ministry is going about it all wrong. The government should encourage and support anyone who has idea and project; it should help farmers, organize them and give them technology and insurance of production to go back to their villages and became large land producers not small size as they were before.
Land misuse:
Land and Water Resources are the two most vital assets of the country and there is an urgent need to conserve and properly manage these resources . we face two main problem: small size traditional techniques of production and the corruption factor that include huge size of misuse land .


Strategies for Kurdistan agriculture sector by using strategy matrix:
Strategies with take to concentration strengths to take advantage of opportunities:
-we have significant agricultural resources, and these must be utilized scientifically and effectively. Our resources include a favorable climate, arable land and water resources , what remaining is a proper plan within government self-sufficient policies to use properly all our resources.

-land reform that tries to changes the small size family-firm farms to big size and more sophisticated technology and scale production and by adding government policies with foreign direct investment to import technologies and experts to have low risk investment to improve agriculture sector and help other sectors as well.

Strategies to take advantages of opportunities by overcoming weakness:
-government expenditures and facilitating the inflow of FDI and improving agricultural industry will help to filling the gap of lack of capital to improve the water distribution and protection and storage facilities.
-by giving to this sector enough incentives and controlling corruption the way to get involving private sector to this sector and injecting FDI is possible.

Strategies that use strengths to avoid threats:
-by managing our resources like labor force and fertile land and water resources and using the advance technologies we can find the solution to step toward self-sufficient economy and overcome import threats.
-by taking to consideration land reform and fertile land we have to make a good situation for people to came back to villages and their lands and help production and overcome unemployment and rural-urban migration

Strategies that minimize weakness and avoid threats:
-if we import advance technologies and protect our resources via several projects like dams and silos and other protection strategies we can face the food security much easier.
-by giving incentive government can collect enough private investment and capital to improve local production and minimize imports.