Agriculture and Food Security

1. Executive Summary

The Vision begins with a different definition of agricultural success. Success is not the largest number of cultivated dunums, the highest volume of government purchases or nominal self-sufficiency in every commodity. It is a food and agricultural system producing more value, food and income in return for the water, land, labour and capital used; maintaining resilient domestic capacity in commodities whose disruption poses a social or fiscal risk; and absorbing drought and trade disruption without a collapse in food supply or producers' income.

The baseline explains this definition. The Statistics Authority's final 2025 wheat and barley report estimates wheat output at approximately 4.379 million tonnes, down 16.3% from 5.234 million tonnes in 2024. Wheat area fell from 8.177 to 7.050 million dunums, while average yield based on cultivated area fell from 640.1 to 621.1 kg/dunum. Irrigated land accounted for 96.5% of wheat production in 2025. These figures do not imply permanent failure; they show a strategic commodity's sensitivity to water, acreage and seasonal conditions. ³

By contrast, FAO's September 2026 brief estimates a better cereal harvest following improved rainfall, with 5.6 million tonnes of wheat and 6.5 million tonnes of total cereals outside the Kurdistan Region, while keeping cereal import requirements at approximately 5.5 million tonnes in 2026/2027. This does not contradict Iraqi statistics: the year, coverage and methodology differ. The lesson is that strong domestic production and trade are compatible, and that food security requires production, stocks, import routes and stable demand together. ⁴

Water is the governing constraint. The National Development Plan 2024–2028 itself makes ‘achieving sustainable food security’ an objective for agriculture and water resources, putting overall irrigation efficiency at 46% in 2024 with a target of 53% in 2028, and water conveyance and distribution efficiency at 76%, rising to 81%. In 2026, the Ministry of Water Resources received the WaPOR tool in the West Gharraf project to measure water use and productivity through remote sensing. The proposed Vision builds on this: moving from counting irrigation devices and planned acreage to measuring actual water, crops, value, losses and quality. ⁵⁶

The sector's structure also shows why the state's role must differ from the farmer's. The National Development Plan estimates that the private sector generates approximately 99% of agricultural output, while agricultural capital formation remains heavily dependent on the public sector. In other words, the state bears much of the responsibility for canals, dams, data, infrastructure, research and public services, while daily production decisions are dispersed among producers. Vision 2045 therefore needs not ‘a ministry that farms more’, but a state that manages water, information, rules, infrastructure and stocks, enabling farmers and investors to make better production decisions. ⁷

2. Definitions and methodological boundaries

2.1. Operational glossary

2.2. Evidence rule

The chapter adopts a working figure when its data year, coverage, unit and definition are clear. If an official Iraqi source differs from an international estimate, it does not choose a ‘middle’ figure; it uses each for the claim it was designed to support. Current-season estimates or executive-body statements are treated as situational updates, not substitute historical series for statistical surveys. This matters in agriculture because differences in season, rainfall and geographical coverage can turn a superficial numerical comparison into a false conclusion.

Targets fall into two categories: existing government targets that can be adopted for their stated period, such as the development plan's 2028 irrigation-efficiency target; and new strategic indicators that cannot receive a number before a baseline exists, such as production value per cubic metre, losses in date or vegetable chains, or import concentration for a critical commodity. After 2030, reviewing baselines becomes a prerequisite for setting 2035–2045 figures.

3. Iraq's agricultural and food baseline

3.1. The economy and production

The National Development Plan places agriculture at the heart of diversification, setting a planning trajectory in which agricultural output at constant prices rises from IQD 5.500 trillion in 2024 to IQD 7.764 trillion in 2028, with targeted annual growth of 9% under the plan's assumptions, and its contribution to constant-price GDP rises from 2.5% in 2024 to 2.9% in 2028. These are plan figures, not results already achieved, and must be assessed at the end of the period before being extended to 2045. ⁸

The institutional economic structure is unusual. The plan's table estimates that the private sector generates 99.6% of agricultural output in 2022 and 99% in 2028, while the public sector represented 95.2% of agricultural fixed capital formation in 2022, with a target of 90% in 2028. Production assets are thus distributed among farmers and companies, but much network capital—irrigation and public infrastructure—remains governmental. This justifies separating ‘the state's role’ from ‘ownership of production’. ⁹

3.2. Land: a discrepancy that must not be concealed

The Statistics Authority's environmental indicators report 13.5 million dunums as ‘land suitable for agriculture’ in 2022–2024 and 11.9 million dunums cultivated in the 2024 winter season. By contrast, the Ministry of Water Resources table in the National Development Plan reports 28 million dunums under the same heading. The two figures cannot be combined, nor one chosen without explanation, because coverage, administrative definition or reclamation potential may differ. The Vision's decision is to record the discrepancy and require the 2027–2030 phase to reconcile land and soil maps, use rights and classification methodology before setting a national area target. ¹⁰¹¹

4. The real problem: productivity, water and markets

It is easy to reduce the agricultural crisis to water scarcity, but water explains only part of the outcome. Even in a year with better water availability, agriculture may remain low-return if the variety is weak, the field uneven, irrigation poorly timed, a pest detected late, market prices provide no signal before planting, or storage forces distress sales at harvest. The reverse also holds: technology alone cannot save a crop planted in an unsuitable location or within a market chain without demand.

The chapter therefore divides productivity into four links: biological productivity (yield/dunum), water productivity (yield or value/m3), economic productivity (value added and net income/dunum), and chain productivity (what arrives in marketable condition after loss, storage and transport). Improving the first link while wasting water or allowing prices to collapse is not success. Reducing water use while cutting farmers' income enough to drive them off the land is not sustainability either.

5. Food security is not absolute self-sufficiency

FAO's definition of food security rests on four interrelated dimensions: availability, access, utilisation and stability. A country can therefore achieve high domestic production of a commodity yet remain food-insecure if households cannot afford it, quality and nutrition are poor, or production collapses every two years with drought. Imports can also contribute to security where sources are diversified and stocks, alternative routes and payment capacity exist. ¹²

Iraq needs a ‘resilient core’, not a ‘comprehensive self-sufficiency list’. Wheat and certain staples carry clear social and fiscal weight and warrant defensible domestic production capacity and stocks. For other goods, importing a share may be more rational than depleting scarce water, provided multiple trade sources and adequate stocks exist. This decision is not settled ideologically, but through a matrix combining commodity importance, import sensitivity, water cost, storability, nutrition, alternatives and market resilience.

6. Water as a production constraint: from dunums to value per cubic metre

Agriculture is Iraq's largest water user, so food security cannot be separated from water's opportunity cost. Turning this conclusion into policy requires precision, however: water ‘withdrawn’ is not the same as water ‘consumed’. Some seepage or drainage may return to the water system, and some upgrades may increase yield but encourage farmers to expand acreage, eliminating savings at basin level. The Vision therefore seeks not ‘drip irrigation everywhere’, but a measurable agricultural water budget connecting allocation to season, location, crop type and outcome.

The crucial transition is a dual measure: kg of food/m3 for bulk commodities, and value added or net income/m3 for high-value commodities, with a third resilience indicator so that value alone does not encourage neglect of strategic cereals. WaPOR, received by the Ministry of Water Resources in West Gharraf during 2026, opens a practical remote-sensing measurement pathway, but must be integrated with discharge, field and crop data rather than used as an isolated satellite image. ¹³

7. Modernising irrigation: technology, service and governance

The National Development Plan establishes a measurable short-term trajectory: overall irrigation efficiency rises from 46% in 2024 to 53% in 2028, water conveyance and distribution efficiency from 76% to 81%, while field irrigation efficiency remains at 61% between 2024 and 2028. These figures matter because they prevent the Vision from inventing a new trajectory, but are insufficient alone. If field efficiency improves while operation, maintenance and distribution remain poorly managed, or if a water-intensive crop expands without a cap, the expected national impact will not materialise. ¹⁴

The proposed upgrade is an ‘irrigation service’, not ‘equipment distribution’. The service begins with a field and soil survey, identification of water source, pressure and pumping energy, and technology selection, followed by training, operation, maintenance, spare parts and before/after measurement. The installed device, actual area served, season, crop, estimated water use and yield must be recorded. The state can then finance part of the transition on the basis of outcomes rather than a purchase invoice alone.

In 2026, Iraqi bodies and partners launched programmes to expand modern irrigation, announcing figures for system contracts and targeted acreage. The Vision does not turn these statements into an achievement baseline: a contract is not installation, installation is not operation, and operation is not a saving. The programme indicator is ‘an operating dunum with before/after measurement and documented water/yield’, supported by independent sample auditing.

8. Land, soil, salinity and desertification

Agricultural land is not a uniform geometric area. Salinity, irrigation-water quality, drainage, soil degradation, desertification and land ownership/tenure fundamentally alter productivity. Vision 2045 therefore does not use ‘dunums reclaimed’ alone. Every reclamation programme needs a baseline for salinity, drainage, groundwater depth, organic matter or crop-suitable characteristics, and post-investment maintenance costs. Land reclaimed once but returning to salinity a few years later is not a sustainable productive asset.

The land portfolio also requires spatial decisions. Orchards differ from wheat fields, saline land from rainfed land, and land near a market and refrigeration from isolated land. An ‘agricultural-water atlas’ is therefore the first decision infrastructure: layers covering land, soil, salinity, water, climate, crops, productivity and markets, at a level that supports planning without turning farmers' data into a punitive instrument or unnecessary disclosure.

9. Wheat and strategic cereals

Wheat is a test case because state intervention extends from seeds and water planning to marketing, stocks and the food distribution network. Official 2025 data show declines not only in production but also in area and yield. Moreover, 96.5% of output came from irrigated land according to the report, making water cost central to wheat policy even if the crop's food-security importance justifies different treatment from a high-value commercial crop. ¹⁵

The Vision does not abolish government purchasing; it redefines it. Purchasing is an instrument for stocks, stability and price signalling. If it becomes an open-ended guarantee regardless of variety, quality, water and location, it may encourage irrational expansion. The guaranteed price, where used, is therefore separated from quality and efficiency rewards, required stock quantities are determined through an official method, and private-market, processing and contracting channels remain available so that the state does not become the sole buyer.

10. Paddy rice and water-intensive crops

Iraqi agriculture's difficult decision emerges in a crop with high cultural, market and local value but strong sensitivity to water, such as paddy rice. ‘Permanent prohibition’ dissipates knowledge and a value chain; ‘unconditional expansion’ ignores water scarcity. The solution is a clear annual water allocation, eligible areas, consumption-reducing technologies and management, water-productivity measurement, and expansion tied to a pilot season's outcome.

In June 2026, FAO discussed with Iraqi partners expanding mechanical rice transplanting in Najaf to improve water-use efficiency and resilience. The Vision adopts the lesson that technology is tested against water, yield, cost and labour together, not declared a national solution before measurement. Rice can model the management of every water-intensive crop: water cap, geographical scope, trial, measurement and then decision. ¹⁶

11. Feed, livestock and poultry

Food security does not end with cereals. Poultry, eggs, milk and meat depend on feed, veterinary health, energy, refrigeration and prices. The Statistics Authority's 2025 poultry report, excluding the Kurdistan Region, estimates 5,364 projects, but only 3,008 were actually producing and 2,292 were idle: the operating gap is therefore more than a shortage of projects. Live broiler production also fell to 163.5 thousand tonnes in 2025, while table-egg production declined to approximately 4.313 billion eggs. ¹⁷

This picture changes policy. The priority is not granting licences and new projects while existing assets remain idle, but diagnosing why they stopped: feed, working capital, disease, electricity/energy, markets, import volatility or management. A selective restart programme is built on viability, not rescuing every asset. Feed security must also be separated from self-sufficiency: importing maize or soybeans may remain necessary, but dependence on one source or the absence of operating stocks increases risks.

12. Dates, orchards, vegetables and high-value crops

If cereals test security, orchards, vegetables and dates test value per unit of water, labour and export capability. These activities can generate greater value per unit of area, but are more sensitive to quality, sorting, refrigeration, packaging and speed to market. Supporting an orchard therefore fails if its output remains mixed across varieties and grades or is sold under pressure without storage and contracts.

For dates, for example, the priority is not simply more palms, but productivity per palm, varietal quality, orchard health, husbandry, harvesting, sorting, packaging, processing and market access. For vegetables, greenhouse/protected cultivation, scheduling, contracts and refrigeration matter more than seasonal expansion that causes prices to collapse. This is where C04 meets C03: the farm produces material of consistent quality, while processing/packaging adds shelf life, value and a market.

13. Seeds, extension, mechanisation and agricultural data

13.1. Variety before support

Much of a productivity leap comes from an apparently small decision: a variety suited to location, water, heat and market; reliable seed; the right planting date; and fertiliser and pest management. The seed system must therefore move from quantities distributed to varietal performance: yield, stability, water, quality, resistance and market acceptance. The Vision does not prescribe one variety for Iraq; climatic and soil diversity require a portfolio of varieties.

13.2. Extension as a decision service

Traditional agricultural extension based on a general lecture is insufficient. Farmers need a seasonal service: weather and pest alerts, irrigation schedules, soil-based fertiliser advice, market prices and performance comparisons. A digital platform is useful only if it simplifies a decision; a new app should not be created where an existing platform can be expanded or government data integrated. Extension success is measured by changed practice and outcomes, not seminar counts.

13.3. Mechanisation as a service, not ownership

Not every holding needs to own every machine. Contract mechanisation and private service centres may be more efficient for small and medium-sized holdings, particularly for harvesting, precision levelling, planting and spraying. The state's role is standards, finance/guarantees where a market gap exists, and maintenance and safety skills, not distributing assets that stop when spare parts are unavailable.

14. From field to market: post-harvest systems, refrigeration and sorting

Increasing production without preserving it may be the most expensive way to increase food. Every kilogram lost after harvest embodies water, energy, labour and inputs used without return. Vision 2045 therefore places post-harvest loss at the heart of ‘resource productivity’, particularly for vegetables, fruit, dates and animal products. It does not invent a national loss figure: methodology, commodity and season vary, and chain-level baselines must be established.

The solution is not to build general government warehouses everywhere. The problem begins with mapping: where is production concentrated, when does it peak, what temperature/moisture does it require, how far is the market, and who will pay service fees? Private or partnership-based sorting, refrigeration and packaging centres can then be developed, provided production volume, contracts and professional operations exist. Strategic grain silos are a different case because their national-stock function may justify public capital, with measurable operations and efficiency.

15. Trade, stocks and the agricultural calendar

The regional trade shock in 2026 demonstrated that food enters Iraq through a vital external network. The joint FAO, WFP, World Bank and other partners' note on disruption in the Strait of Hormuz stressed that domestic production does not eliminate the importance of ports and trade routes, and that crisis priorities are continued inputs and staples and market resilience. This supports a ‘three-layer’ model: domestic production, stocks and diversified trade. ¹⁸

The agricultural calendar is a legitimate instrument for protecting peak domestic production from seasonal dumping when based on data. In July 2026, the Ministry of Agriculture announced that 33 crop items were covered by import bans under the calendar. The Vision does not turn that number into a target; for each decision, it requires an estimate of domestic supply, stocks, farm-gate, wholesale and retail prices, a time window, quality conditions and an announced review date. If supply falls or prices rise unjustifiably, the import gateway operates automatically under published rules rather than exceptional negotiation. ¹⁹

16. Farmers, rural areas and agricultural work

Modern agriculture cannot exist while farmers are last to receive information and first to bear shocks. The 2021 Labour Force Survey found that 98.1% of agricultural workers were informally employed. This old baseline nevertheless reveals fragile social and contractual protection, justifying updated measurement in the next survey and caution against assuming that higher output means better rural lives. ²⁰

Turning farmers into commercial producers does not mean eliminating smallholdings or imposing a large company. Farmers need access to water services, extension, finance, insurance, contracts, mechanisation and markets, individually or through voluntary cooperation or a service hub. Agricultural contracts also need rules on quality, delivery, pricing and dispute resolution so that the power imbalance between farmer and buyer does not become exploitation.

Social support must also remain separate from commodity support. If the objective is to protect a poor rural household, social support is more precise than raising the crop price for all producers. If the objective is food security or adoption of water-saving technology, support is designed for that objective and made conditional on outcomes. The chapter preserves the boundary between income policy and production policy so that crop prices do not bear all the state's functions.

17. International comparisons: mechanisms, not countries

No single country's agriculture can be copied into Iraq. Comparison is useful only when it addresses a specific problem. Three mechanisms suffice for this chapter: irrigation modernisation with water accounting; governance of water distribution and transparent accounts; and non-conventional water use under health and crop standards. A mechanism's success elsewhere does not establish its suitability for Iraq without adjustment, but identifies design questions that must be answered.

18. Iraqi agriculture in 2045 and the stages of transformation

18.1. The 2045 picture

In 2045, government does not interpret the agricultural season only after it ends. Before planting, there are water budgets, crop portfolios, risk maps, prices and stocks; during the season, water, crops, weather and pests are monitored; after harvest, yield, quality, water, income and losses are measured. Farmers need not pass through a chain of offices to understand their entitlement or service. Food factories know raw-material specifications and timing, government stocks have known quantities, quality and age, and trade opens or tightens according to published signals.

The objective is not to make agriculture a relatively huge share of output at any cost. Agricultural employment's share may fall as productivity and incomes rise, while processing and services surrounding agriculture may grow more than raw-crop value. What matters is that the rural system generates income, value and resilience, and scarce water moves towards uses providing Iraq with the best combination of food, income, security and sustainability.

18.2. Stages of transformation

19. Indicator and target dashboard

The 2045 dashboard must be small enough to manage and broad enough to prevent superficial improvement. ‘Production’ must not overshadow water, income and losses, nor ‘irrigation efficiency’ conceal acreage expansion. Existing official numerical targets remain through their stated horizon; subsequent targets follow baseline development and evaluation.

20. Implementation programme package

P1 — Agricultural-water accounts and productivity atlas

Problem: land, water and crop figures come from different systems and definitions. Objective: build a measurement register linking land, water, crops and value. Intervention: reconcile definitions, map soil and salinity, integrate WaPOR, discharge and crop data, develop value/water accounts and a methodological data register. Natural lead: Ministry of Planning/Statistics Authority with Water Resources and Agriculture; no new authority. Starts in 2027 and becomes a permanent function.

P2 — Irrigation modernisation as a performance service

Problem: confusing equipment purchases with achieved savings. Objective: improve water outcomes, not equipment counts. Intervention: design, installation, training, maintenance, before/after measurement and support linked to operating dunums and results. Leads by mandate: Water Resources for allocations and networks, and Agriculture for field technologies and services, with producers and suppliers. Finance is a public-private mix because water's public benefit does not eliminate the farmer's private benefit.

P3 — A water- and climate-resilient agricultural portfolio

Problem: planting a crop out of habit or in response to the current price. Objective: align crops with water, soil, markets and food security. Intervention: suitability maps, dry/wet-season scenarios, rules for water-intensive crops, tolerant varieties and field trials. The output is not a ‘prohibited list’, but decision signals, incentives and allocations that can be updated.

P4 — Seeds, extension, mechanisation and warning

Problem: knowledge, timing and maintenance gaps. Objective: increase yield and stability and reduce wasted inputs. Intervention: varietal performance, laboratories and soil, seasonal digital and field extension, mechanisation contracting, and pest and weather warnings. Indicator: adoption of a practice and an actual outcome in a monitored sample, not course or message counts.

P5 — The post-harvest and cold-chain compact

Problem: value and water lost between field and market. Objective: reduce losses and improve grades and prices. Intervention: chain-specific loss studies, refrigeration, sorting and packaging centres linked to contracts and production locations, safety laboratories and cold transport. Private finance is the default for commercial assets; the state funds data, standards, public infrastructure or a limited guarantee where a financing gap is demonstrated.

P6 — The food-security network: stocks + trade + calendar

Problem: separate policies for stocks, imports and support. Objective: one shock-responsive network. Intervention: determine stocks by commodity, rotation, import-concentration measurement, alternative routes, a calendar with public triggers, and activation of food-access protection during shocks. Success is not measured by lower imports alone.

P7 — Feed and livestock resilience

Problem: idle assets, volatile feed and disease. Objective: viable operations and animal-product food security. Intervention: diagnose idle projects, a multisource feed strategy, biosecurity and surveillance, energy and refrigeration, and contracting. Rescuing an unviable asset merely because it exists is rejected.

P8 — Restoring land, orchards and a productive countryside

Problem: salinity, degradation, weak orchards and fragile rural areas. Objective: restore lasting productivity, not numerical reclamation. Intervention: drainage, salinity and soil measures, orchard and variety rehabilitation, afforestation/land management where viable, water-user associations and stronger local chains. The USD 39 million Green Climate project in Karbala, Najaf and Muthanna, and the USD 6.6 million FAO/IFAD initiative in four southern governorates, demonstrate financing instruments that can be built upon, but do not estimate the cost of national transformation. ²⁷²⁸

21. Implementation, cost and financing matrix

21.1. Why there is no ‘total cost of agriculture to 2045’

A single figure for agricultural transformation to 2045 would be misleading. Irrigation-modernisation costs depend on system type, water and energy source, and actual area; reclamation costs depend on salinity and drainage; and refrigeration capacity depends on product, season and market. The Vision therefore uses a gateway methodology: baseline, design, feasibility study, capital and operating and maintenance costs, financing source, public/private benefit, and then decision. Implicit support—subsidised water, electricity, land or purchasing prices—is included in costs, not left outside them.

21.2. Financing: who pays and why?

The rule is that the private beneficiary pays the portion generating a private return, while the state finances public goods or external benefits that the market cannot capture alone: water measurement, research, plant and animal health, shared infrastructure, strategic stocks and land protection. Climate finance is used where adaptation or emissions/energy-reduction impacts are demonstrated under its conditions, not as free money. Performance contracts, bank financing and limited guarantees can replace full grants for field equipment and refrigeration.

21.3. Phased implementation matrix

22. Risks and safeguards

The greatest risk to long-term agricultural policy is not the absence of a project, but an instrument becoming a permanent, unreviewed interest: unconditional purchasing support, an automatically renewed import ban, an irrigation device counted as an achievement while idle, or reclamation announced in dunums and never measured years later. Every instrument is therefore tied to a review date, an outcome indicator and a data owner.

22.1. Rights and social safeguards

Agricultural water management needs enforcement, but must not become policing of the countryside. Tenure rights, objections and transparency in allocations and contracts must be clear. Any allocation reduction in a scarcity season requires a published rule and timely information allowing farmers to change decisions. Remote-sensing or agricultural-register data must not be used to expand surveillance beyond services and specifically defined lawful enforcement.

Nor should farmers alone bear the cost of a transition the state decides upon for a public water benefit. When policy requires technology or a change generating basin-level or climate benefits beyond the holding's benefit, temporary conditional public contributions may be justified. This does not justify funding capital, operations and profits indefinitely.

23. Conclusion and the bridge to investment and the private sector

Strong agriculture is defined not by its ability to colour the map green, but by its ability to turn water, land, labour and knowledge into food, income and value, then preserve that ability when a dry season arrives or a trade route is disrupted. In water-scarce Iraq, measuring water's value becomes part of food security, not a threat to it: strategic cereals receive a security weighting, commercial crops a value weighting, and all face the test of location, cost and resilience.

The chapter therefore shifts the policy unit from the ‘crop’ alone to the ‘system’: water + soil + variety + farmer + market + storage + trade. When this chain works, the food industry discussed in the preceding chapter can obtain consistently high-quality inputs, rural areas can generate jobs and incomes, and stocks and trade can become a safety net rather than an admission of agricultural failure.

Most of this transformation, however, will not be managed through the state budget and direct investment alone. Irrigation equipment, cold storage, mechanisation, contracting, finance, insurance, agricultural companies and logistics require private capital and predictable investment, competition and financing rules. The next chapter, V2-D04-C05 — Investment and the Private Sector — takes up the question: how can the state make productive investment, including agriculture, more attractive than rent-seeking trade and speculation, and distribute risks between state and investor without privatising profits and socialising losses?

Principal references and sources

1. Iraqi Ministry of Planning, Summary of the National Development Plan 2024–2028: agricultural growth trajectory, agriculture's contribution, public/private composition and irrigation-efficiency targets — Online source
2. Statistics and Geographic Information Systems Authority, Wheat and Barley Production 2025, published in 2026 — Online source
3. FAO, GIEWS Country Brief - Iraq, reference date 1 September 2026: cereal production and import requirements — Online source
4. FAO WaPOR, handover of the water-use and productivity monitoring tool for the West Gharraf project to the Ministry of Water Resources, 25 May 2026 — Online source
5. Statistics and Geographic Information Systems Authority, Key Environmental/Agricultural Statistical Indicators 2022–2024: suitable land and winter season — Online source
6. FAO/AGROVOC and Committee on World Food Security terminology: food security dimensions - availability, access, utilization and stability — Online source
7. FAO Iraq, FAO and Iraqi Government Partners Advance Climate-Smart Solutions in Najaf — mechanized rice transplanting, 15 June 2026 — Online source
8. Statistics and Geographic Information Systems Authority, Poultry Report 2025, published in March 2026, excluding the Kurdistan Region — Online source
9. United Nations in Iraq / FAO, IOM, ITC, World Bank, WFP, Agriculture and Food Security in Iraq: Impact of Regional Developments - Strait of Hormuz Closure, Issue #2, 14 July 2026 — Online source
10. Ministry of Agriculture via the Iraqi News Agency, agricultural calendar and import ban on 33 crop items, 25 July 2026 — Online source
11. ILO/CSO/KRSO, Iraq Labour Force Survey 2021; and the ILO's statement that 98.1% of agricultural workers are in informal jobs — Online source
12. FAO/Government of Iraq, Strengthening Climate Resilience of Vulnerable Agricultural Livelihoods in Southern Iraq (SRVALI), total investment USD 39 million, 26 May 2025 — Online source
13. FAO/Ministry of Agriculture/IFAD, USD 6.6 million initiative supporting smallholder farmers in Muthanna, Qadisiyah, Maysan and Dhi Qar, 11 May 2026 — Online source
14. Statistics and Geographic Information Systems Authority, Agricultural Indicators, website update 2 October 2026 — Online source
15. FAO, irrigation modernization and water productivity methodology, WaPOR/irrigation modernization resources — Online source
16. Ministry of Environment/Iraqi bodies, National Strategy for Environmental Protection and Improvement 2024–2030, via FAOLEX — Online source