BAGHDAD- Iraq approved an allocation of 2.25 million hectares of agricultural land for wheat planting as part of its 2019-2020 season, 500,000 hectares more than the previous season, an official at the agriculture ministry told Reuters on Sunday.
Iraq is a major Middle East grain importer and needs between 4.5 million and 5 million tonnes of wheat a year to supply for its massive food rationing programme.
The plan for the 2019-2020 season includes a total dedicated area of 1.25 million hectares for barley.
"For the first time we are planting wheat over this vast area and if the weather is good this year like last year, we can have self sufficiency," the official, Mahd al-Kaissy, said.
The winter agricultural planting plan was approved by both the agriculture ministry and the ministry of water resources, he said.
Iraq planted 1.750 million hectares of wheat in the 2018-2019 season.
It had expected to produce only 3 million tonnes in 2019 but better rainfall provided more fertile land to grow the crop outside of the areas originally planned.
In July, the agriculture ministry said it had produced 4.75 million tonnes of wheat in total for the 2019 production season. urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nD5N20Q00O
(Reporting By Moayed Kenany Writing By Maha El Dahan; Editing by Elaine Hardcastle) ((Maha.Dahan@thomsonreuters.com; + 9712 4082101; Reuters Messaging: maha.dahan.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net))
