ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Wheat farmers in the Kurdistan Region are still waiting for full payment for their crop from the Iraqi government, an agriculture official said on Saturday.
"Although we received 157,600 tons of wheat this year, which is less compared to last year's 287,700 tons, we have still received the least amount of money, which is 31 billion dinars ($23.6 million), and over 91 billion dinars ($69.4 million) is yet to be disbursed," Nasreen Ahmed, director of silos in Sulaimani province, told Rudaw.
This year, the federal government purchased about 400,000 tons of wheat from farmers across the four provinces of the Kurdistan Region - 158,000 tons from Sulaimani and Halabja, 122,000 tons from Erbil, and nearly 118,000 tons from Duhok.
The government bought the wheat at a rate of 850,000 dinars per ton (about $649), amounting to a total of over 300 billion dinars ($229 million). However, Baghdad has so far sent only 72.