Baghdad – IA – Hendren Makki
Today, Monday, the Ministry of Agriculture announced the export of more than 74 thousand tons of fruits and vegetables during the past year 2023, while clarifying the mechanism for dealing with the abundance or scarcity of crops to cover the local need, and confirmed the success of the government’s strategy to achieve an abundance of crops and export the surplus.
The ministry’s spokesman, Muhammad Al-Khuza’i, told the (INA): “The agricultural calendar program changes constantly, according to local need, supply and demand, and the abundance or scarcity of crops in the local market, so it is a very flexible program and deals with the market daily through technical teams.” Spread in wholesale places in Baghdad and the governorates.
He added, “These teams or committees submit daily reports to the concerned authorities at the headquarters of the Ministry of Agriculture, and the latter submits them to the Minister of Agriculture and then to the Ministerial Council for the Economy to take the decision to open or close the borders, for a limited period and according to the need, and thus apply our mechanism to deal with the abundance or scarcity of crops.” To cover local need.
He continued, “For example, the Iraqi markets are witnessing a large abundance of tomato crops in April and a surplus of tomatoes, so their import stops, and the surplus is exported to the Gulf countries. The same is true of the potato crop, as there is an increase in production, and therefore the surplus will be exported to the Gulf countries and others.” from foreign markets.
He pointed out that “the Ministry exported more than 4 thousand tons of fruits during the past year 2023, including pomegranates, oranges, lingonberries and kiwis, to the markets of the Arab Gulf countries, in addition to exporting more than 70 thousand tons of various vegetables to the Gulf, in addition to exporting quantities of A very large number of feeds, regardless of their names.
He went on to say: “Our arrival at these stages confirms the success of the government’s strategy in achieving an abundance of crops, exporting the surplus, and providing flexibility in covering any scarcity, which was actually achieved by the production operations taking place, reaching self-sufficiency, and the presence of a surplus in vegetable and fruit crops, and even strategic crops such as wheat.”
Regarding the wheat crop, Al-Khuzaie expected that “wheat production for the current agricultural season will be more than 6 million tons, and upon reaching this amount of production, we will go beyond the stage of self-sufficiency, and we will achieve a surplus with the most important strategic crop in the world.”