Locals can’t expect any help from the state oil concern, South Oil. “Their only concern is making the international oil companies happy,” al-Fadhli says. He suggests that while the federal authorities are focussed on increasing Iraq’s income through oil earnings, one thing they haven’t considered is the cost of the loss of farming land that will result in increased spending on importing food supplies for locals.
While the barley farmers may have done well this year, the tomato farmers had plenty of problems. In Zubair, west of Basra, there are now only 2,000 tomato plants left. There used to be 6,000 tomato plants here. Because of a reduction in state subsidies and a market flooded with cheap tomato imports, the tomato farmers who are left find it hard to make a living.
“More than a hundred farming businesses situated inside the oil companies’ areas, have closed. Each of these would have produced between 80 and 100 tonnes of tomatoes a year,” the head of Zubair’s regional agricultural department, Saleh Jabbar, said. “Additionally farms in the areas of Raha, Rafidiya, Barjasiya and Rumaila north and south, where over 7,000 farmers worked, have also closed – they would have been producing around 600,000 tonnes of tomatoes a year.”
As a result of all of this, Basra’s farmers have started to protest further against what they see as an “occupation” of Basra by international oil firms.
“Protests are the result of demands by various interest groups here who feel they have been treated unfairly,” explained Sayed Hani, the organiser of the protest group. “We have submitted various petitions to both the local and the federal government. And we have also chosen not to accept the financial settlements for farmers because they are not enough. About 70 tribal leaders from northern and western Basra are calling for a revaluation of the agricultural land here, but according to more realistic guidelines.”
According to national law, if the Iraqi state requires the farmer’s land for its own purpose, it may simply take it, and without paying any financial compensation. But this law dates back to 1980, when Saddam Hussein was in power; a new Oil and Gas Law is supposed to be being written but it has already been debated in the Iraqi Parliament for a long time with no firm conclusions.
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