It looks like there is hope for hard pressed Iraqi farmers after all. Patrick Cockburn in Baghdad for The Independent is reporting that there is a new cash crop taking hold in some of the best rice growing areas of Iraq.
In yesterday's article Amid the anarchy, farmers begin to grow opium poppies, raising fears that the country could become a major heroin supplier we learn that
Rice farmers along the Euphrates, to the west of the city of Diwaniya, south of Baghdad, have stopped cultivating rice, for which the area is famous, and are instead planting poppies, Iraqi sources familiar with the area have told The Independent. [. . .]
The shift to opium production is taking place in the well-irrigated land west and south of Diwaniya around the towns of Ash Shamiyah, al Ghammas and Ash Shinafiyah. The farmers are said to be having problems in growing the poppies because of the intense heat and high humidity. It is too dangerous for foreign journalists to visit Diwaniya but the start of opium poppy cultivation is attested by two students from there and a source in Basra familiar with the Iraqi drugs trade.
It is true that one does not think of low-lying, hot and humid areas as being suitable for the opium poppy, but it looks like some enterprising farmers in Iraq have found a way to make it work. That is the way progress is made in all fields, and if techniques can be perfected we may expect to see high yields from the fertile and well irrigated areas along the Euphrates in southern Iraq.
In another story from the Independent Opium for the people: Extraordinary move to legalise poppy crops we learn that "In the five years since the overthrow of the Taliban regime, land under cultivation for poppy has grown from 8,000 to 165,000 hectares". The American forces there want to launch a massive air defoliation on the crop, but
But, desperate to win "hearts and minds" in Afghanistan and protect British troops, Tony Blair is on the brink of a U-turn that will set him on a collision course with President George Bush.
The Prime Minister has ordered a review of his counter-narcotics strategy - including the possibility of legalising some poppy production - [. . .]
Supporters of the measure say it would not only curb an illegal drugs trade which supplies 80 per cent of the heroin on Britain's streets, but would hit the Taliban insurgency and help save the lives of British troops. Much of the legally produced drug could be used to alleviate a shortage of opiates for medicinal use in Britain and beyond, they say.
Perhaps we should consider a similar policy in Iraq. I had not understood that there was a big shortage of Heroin, but intensive cultivation methods in occupied Iraq could go a long way to cure it.