Iraq's prime minister has approved a project by a United Arab
Emirates-based company to make biofuel from dates that would
otherwise be wasted because they have started to perish, Iraqi
officials said.
Iraq has the world's third largest oil reserves but its crumbling
farm sector, which has suffered from decades of sanctions,
isolation and war, is the country's leading employer.
A long drought has conspired with entrenched problems like high
soil salinity, poor irrigation practices and a lack of proper seeds
and fertiliser to hold back domestic farming and make Iraq heavily
dependent on grain imports.
Iraqi officials are keen to do anything to boost agricultural
productivity.
"This project will support Iraq's economy by encouraging farmers to
expand date palms farms", a cabinet statement said, announcing
Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's approval of it.
Iraq, whose date palm plantations dot the banks of the Tigris and
Euphrates rivers in an otherwise parched landscape, used to be a
leading date exporter.
It exports a tiny amount at present, officials say.
Faroun Ahmed Hussein, head of the national date palm board, said
the Emirati company would produce bio-ethanol from dates that
farmers cannot export because they are starting to rot.
It would be used domestically at first, then possibly later
exported.
He declined to name the company, estimate the cost of the project
or say how much bio-ethanol it was expected to produce.
Fed to animals
He said Iraq produces 350,000 tonnes of dates annually, a sharp
fall from 900,000 tonnes produced before the US-led invasion to
oust Saddam Hussein but still more than the 150,000 tonnes it
currently consumes.
Some are fed to animals, he said.
"They can't export the left over quantities owing to their poor
quality," Hussein said.
"Farmers will be happy to sell their rotten dates instead of
throwing them away."
Biofuels are seen by some policymakers as a key element in the
fight against climate change, because plants suck up carbon from
the atmosphere, and in the quest for alternatives to non-renewable
fossil fuels.
