ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Baghdad is acting “unequally” and discriminating between farmers in the Kurdistan Region and those in other parts of Iraq, Erbil’s Agriculture Minister Begard Talabani said Tuesday, criticizing the quota allocated for purchases from the Region, which she said would effectively translate to only “a few kilograms of wheat” per farmer despite expectations of a bumper harvest.
“Iraq is implementing a policy that falls outside any framework of mutual coordination, as it discriminates between farmers in the Kurdistan Region and those in other parts of the country,” the minister said, adding that Baghdad has decided to receive only 292,000 tons of wheat from farmers in the Region this year - “an amount we will not accept,” Talabani stressed.
The Kurdish agriculture minister added that after dividing the set quota, the Iraqi government would be purchasing “no more than a few kilograms of wheat” from farmers in the Kurdistan Region, whereas farmers in other parts of Iraq would receive payments for “hundreds of kilograms.”
Talabani noted that her ministry has sent “formal letters of petition” to the Iraqi President Nizar Amedi, outgoing Prime Minister Mohammed Shia' al-Sudani, and relevant authorities in Baghdad, “rejecting the allocated wheat procurement quota for the Kurdistan Region as a violation of farmers’ rights.”
The Iraqi decision comes despite the Kurdistan Region experiencing a wetter season in 2026 compared with previous years.