Iraq’s 2026 agricultural recovery exposes a central adaptation challenge: higher production in a favourable season can coexist with continuing degradation of the resource base. The important question is whether recent investments improve yield stability, soil function and livelihoods across dry and wet years, while preserving water for downstream users and ecosystems.
Three developments make this a particularly useful moment to examine that question. Irrigation rehabilitation increasingly combines hydraulic infrastructure with drainage and water-user institutions; new conservation facilities strengthen the foundation for crop improvement; and processors are building agricultural supply relationships that may change varieties, farm practices and the distribution of production risk. [6], [10], [11], [12], [27]
The central argument
Adaptation is a farming-system outcome. Yield, marketable quality, consumptive water use, salt balance and household income can move in different directions. A successful intervention at one scale may transfer costs to another. The analysis therefore follows connections from field to irrigation command, landscape and value chain.
Biological and hydraulic responses are complementary. Better planting material has limited value where delivery failures or salt accumulation remain binding. Conversely, infrastructure cannot substitute for varieties and management suited to the specific stress environment. Conservation capacity is most consequential when connected to characterization, breeding, seed delivery and farmer use.
Commercialization creates both incentives and trade-offs. Potato processing and dairy aggregation offer pathways for coordinating technology and markets. Their development contribution depends on who participates, who bears rejection and production risks, and whether higher commercial output translates into better livelihoods and diets.
The current evidence is strongest on activity and weakest on sustained impact. Recent disclosures establish installations, training, financing stages and institutional investments. Fewer establish causal effects on resource condition, resilience or distributional outcomes. This distinction shapes the interpretation of each case.
Recovery across different farming systems
FAO’s 1 September 2026 country brief estimates cereal production at about 6.5 million tonnes, including 5.6 million tonnes of wheat, excluding the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. Improved rainfall from December 2025 through April 2026 helped northern yields. Yet the same assessment reports a 50% reduction in surface-water-irrigated area in the south and southeast. It forecasts cereal imports of 5.5 million tonnes for July 2026–June 2027. Production, procurement and imports describe different parts of the food system and should not be used interchangeably. [1]
The UN Water Task Force’s June assessment provides a complementary picture: replenished storage after the winter rains, but continuing vulnerabilities in the Euphrates system and groundwater stress around Sinjar and Ba’aj. Its seasonal observations should be read alongside the later harvest assessment rather than treated as a full-year crop result. [2]
The analytical implication is geographical. Rainfall can improve northern rainfed production without restoring the timing, quantity or quality of deliveries to a southern irrigation command. Annual storage is also a poor proxy for water available during a crop’s sensitive growth stages. For agronomic interpretation, the relevant exposure is stress timing relative to crop development, together with root-zone conditions and management. A national harvest estimate cannot identify which combinations of genotype, environment and management performed well, or why.
| Production setting | Dominant interaction and analytical significance |
|---|---|
| Northern rainfed cereals | Seasonal rainfall and harvest variability. Stronger yields can increase marketed volumes without resolving storage, purchasing or transport constraints. [1] |
| Kurdistan’s potato and horticulture clusters | Water reliability intersects with variety, storage and processor specifications. Recent Dutch-supported projects connect these stages. [10], [11] |
| Central and southern irrigated farming | Allocation, delivery reliability, root-zone salinity and drainage interact. Local measurements show significant differences between river reaches. [1], [3], [4] |
| Basra and the lower river system | Salinity includes seawater intrusion as well as agricultural salt accumulation. Orchard renewal remains dependent on suitable field conditions. [9] |
Transboundary infrastructure: a mechanism, not a farm allocation
On 2 November 2025, Iraq and Turkey signed an implementation mechanism for water cooperation. Reuters reported an oil-revenue financing arrangement for projects implemented by Turkish companies, with initial water-harvesting dams and land-reclamation initiatives envisaged. This establishes a reported infrastructure mechanism; it does not establish a guaranteed volume of irrigation water at any particular Iraqi farm. [18]
The irrigation command is a useful intermediate scale between national agreements and field response. Farmers on the same canal may share a nominal allocation but experience different delivery reliability. Head-to-tail position, groundwater access and drainage condition can therefore be more informative analytical strata than governorate averages alone. These are proposed explanatory dimensions, not effects quantified by the agreement.
Salinity, intrusion and contamination
Several different water-quality problems
Salinity is the dissolved-salt burden confronting a crop; sodicity concerns sodium’s effect on soil structure and infiltration. These can occur together but are not interchangeable. FAO’s irrigation guidance evaluates electrical conductivity alongside sodium adsorption ratio. Evapotranspiration concentrates salts in the root zone, while shallow saline groundwater can supply additional salts through capillary rise. Sustainable salt management therefore involves drainage and sufficient leaching as well as irrigation scheduling. [3]
A study published in September 2026 examined 300 seasonal observations from 2020–2024 at 15 stations on the Euphrates, Hillah and Diwaniyah waterways in Babylon. Reported mean electrical conductivity differed markedly: approximately 0.86, 1.30 and 1.79 dS/m respectively. The authors classified most observations as presenting slight-to-moderate salinity restrictions, while their combined conductivity/sodium assessment generally found no infiltration restriction. These are historical measurements from selected reaches, not a national 2026 water-quality map. [4]
Reuters reported in January 2026 that reduced freshwater flows had allowed Gulf seawater farther into the Shatt al-Arab. Marine intrusion is distinct from agricultural salt accumulation. [9]
Salt loading and the management boundary
At field scale, the relevant balance includes salts imported in irrigation and through groundwater exchange, exported in drainage, and changes in soil storage. A lower applied volume can reduce salt loading yet also reduce leaching. The direction of the root-zone response therefore cannot be inferred from application efficiency alone. Electrical conductivity of irrigation water and conductivity of a soil saturation extract describe different quantities; transferring a water-quality classification directly into a crop-yield response would be inappropriate. [3]
The Muthanna demonstration’s combination of pressurized delivery and subsurface drainage is consequently more informative than a generic irrigation-modernization label: its scope addresses water delivery and salt export together. [6]
Contamination requires evidence about the specific pathway
A 2025 paper in the Iraqi Journal of Agricultural Sciences reported metal contamination in irrigation water and soils at sampled sites in the Al-Jisr area of Al-Madain, southeast of Baghdad. Sampling covered summer and winter months in 2024. Its findings included site-specific water exceedances and soil cadmium concerns. The study provides a local warning signal; it does not establish that Iraqi agricultural produce generally is unsafe, and it is not a substitute for crop-tissue or food-residue surveillance. [5]
The study’s inferential boundary matters: water and soil observations identify a hazard pathway, while crop uptake and human exposure require additional evidence. Pathogens, metals, pesticide residues and hydrocarbons also require different analytical methods; conductivity cannot serve as a general contamination proxy. The reviewed studies do not establish nationally representative food-safety prevalence or support attribution to a particular industrial operator.
Water reuse connects farms and landscapes
IWMI’s October 2025 account identifies the Maysan Constructed Wetland as a concrete case linking wastewater reuse with local institutions. The World Food Programme funded and implemented the project; IWMI contributed community engagement and governance arrangements. The account describes work with farmers, households and authorities and argues for risk-based irrigation-water standards. It is a programme account, rather than a published time series of treatment performance or crop outcomes. [26]
This extends the agricultural problem beyond water quantity. Reuse changes the mixture of water, nutrients and contaminants entering a production system, while land and water management determine where those materials subsequently accumulate or move. Treatment performance, irrigation suitability and downstream environmental effects are distinct endpoints. The existence of a wetland does not establish that its effluent is suitable for every crop or exposure route.
The landscape trade-off
A potential local benefit from reuse is reduced demand for another water source. Whether this becomes a basin benefit depends on the alternative fate of the wastewater and on any expansion in consumption. Likewise, field drainage can improve the root zone while transferring a salt load to receiving waters. These are system-boundary issues: an intervention can relocate a burden as well as reduce it.
For southern Iraq, this connects agricultural adaptation to marsh ecology and to the livelihoods supported by wetlands. Treating cropped land, drainage channels and receiving ecosystems as independent projects obscures those exchanges. The agricultural relevance of environmental flows is therefore broader than competition over an irrigation allocation; it includes the condition of the landscape in which production and rural livelihoods operate.
What the Maysan case adds
The institutional innovation is as important as the treatment concept. A reuse system requires agreements about access, maintenance and responsibility for performance. Participation in construction or consultation does not itself establish durable operation, but it can create the organizational basis for it. The Maysan example makes that relationship explicit without supplying sufficient evidence to estimate a transferable treatment cost or crop-response coefficient. [26]
The analytical implication is that reuse is best understood as a coupled service and farming-system intervention. Reliability and seasonal suitability determine whether growers can incorporate reclaimed water into a crop calendar. The economic value of the service, and the environmental outcome, depend on those conditions rather than on treatment infrastructure alone.
Dust, heat and biological resilience
NASA satellite observations documented a substantial dust storm crossing Iraq on 14 April 2025. This is a well-observed event, not a statistical demonstration that storms increased by a particular percentage. UNEP’s July 2026 discussion connects dust generation with dry, degraded and exposed land and emphasizes that dust can travel across borders. Attribution to one farm, land-use practice or country requires more than a satellite image of the plume. [21], [22]
For agriculture, the connection works in both directions. Loss of vegetation and exposed soil can contribute to dust-generating conditions; land restoration addresses part of that underlying vulnerability. The causal problem is separating storm exposure from the conditions that make a field vulnerable. Vegetation cover, soil condition, wind and antecedent moisture vary together. A remotely observed dust plume is evidence of transport, but it does not identify the contribution of a particular management practice or quantify crop damage. [21], [22]
Monitoring is improving, but delivery is not an outcome measure
In 2026 FAO and the Ministry of Environment reported the handover of 16 field-monitoring packages, including soil and water equipment and tablets, and training for 46 specialists through a GEF-supported land-management project. This provides a named institutional route for better land-degradation evidence. It establishes equipment and capacity-building activity, rather than a measured reduction in salinity or dust exposure. [8]
Compound stress is more informative than a list of independent hazards. The same farm can experience a water-delivery interruption during hot weather, then confront declining water quality when supply resumes. Attribution based only on seasonal rainfall or annual mean temperature misses the sequence. For adaptation analysis, yield stability and recovery after a shock are therefore different endpoints from performance in the unusually favourable season.
Date palms: planting material and field survival
Nakheel Al Basra’s director told Reuters in January 2026 that its laboratory, operating since 2023, could produce up to 250,000 date-palm seedlings annually. That is a management-reported capability, not verified annual sales or long-term orchard survival. [9]
The distinction between propagating planting material and restoring productive orchards is fundamental. A laboratory output figure says little about mature yields under a particular irrigation regime. Tissue culture, acclimatization, pest management and long-term orchard water conditions address different stages of the production system. An informative biological endpoint is sustained establishment and productive performance across field environments, rather than multiplication rate or early survival alone. Uniform planting material also raises a separate question about the diversity retained in orchard renewal.
In September 2026, FAO, Egypt’s Agricultural Research Center and its Central Laboratory for Date Palm Research and Development launched a programme involving Iraqi participants, covering tissue culture and integrated pest management, particularly red palm weevil prevention and surveillance. The FAO-China South-South Cooperation programme and One Country One Priority Product initiative provide named institutional links. This is a training intervention; it is not evidence of a newly measured national pest outbreak or a commercial nursery contract. [23]
Agrobiodiversity becomes research infrastructure
On 23 August 2026, FAO, the European Union and federal and regional authorities inaugurated a Gene/Seed Bank in Sulaymaniyah. FAO describes a purpose-built facility on a 25-hectare site at Hawari Shar Park, with storage, laboratories and research and training spaces. The intervention complements rehabilitation of the National Gene Bank in Abu Ghraib. Both sit within a wider EU-funded, FAO-implemented programme that also supports southern Iraqi agri-food resilience. [27]
The significance lies in the connection between conserving diversity and using it. Storage capacity is only the first stage of an adaptation pathway. Accession identity, viability and characterization determine whether a collection can inform breeding or varietal evaluation; seed multiplication and delivery determine whether a useful trait reaches production. The inauguration establishes infrastructure, not the completion of that pathway.
Stress tolerance is a target environment problem
“Drought tolerant” or “salt tolerant” is too broad a descriptor to explain performance across Iraq’s farming systems. The target environment includes stress intensity, timing and duration, as well as soil, crop management and end use. A genotype that preserves establishment under salinity may not preserve marketable yield or processor acceptance. Similarly, a variety suited to low-input rainfed production need not be the preferred choice under reliable irrigation.
This makes genotype-by-environment-by-management interactions central to interpretation. Multi-environment results and farmer preferences reveal information that a single demonstration yield cannot. The discussion here identifies the analytical requirement; it does not claim that a particular Iraqi landrace or introduced variety has already demonstrated superiority.
Diversity and specialization can pull in different directions
Processing demand can encourage standardized varieties and concentrated crop production, while resilience may benefit from options across crops, varieties and planting dates. These objectives are not necessarily incompatible, but their reconciliation depends on what processors accept and what farmers can market. A conservation facility and a processing plant act on different parts of that decision system.
The institutional opportunity is unusually concrete: the new Sulaymaniyah facility and Abu Ghraib’s conservation system can be considered alongside the University of Duhok/HZPC/Kurdistan Holland relationship and the date-palm propagation and pest-management networks. This is a potential research connection between documented actors, not an announced joint programme. [10], [23], [27]
A broader food-systems interpretation also distinguishes genetic diversity from dietary diversity. More varieties conserved, more crop value sold and better household diets are separate outcomes. Commercial agriculture can support food access through income, but neither a seed-bank opening nor a snack-factory expansion establishes that nutritional pathway.
Potato value chains as adaptation institutions
Green Iraq and PepsiCo: the potato-chip supply chain
A University of Sulaimani case study published in May 2024 documented industrial-potato relationships involving Green Iraq Company and a Lay’s chips factory in Bazian. Its fieldwork examined a selected entrepreneurial supply chain spanning Sharazur, Kalar and Penjwin. The study described the processor’s involvement in supply and contracting. This is historical evidence of an established production relationship, not a representative national survey or a 2026 capacity audit. [24]
The recent development is a July 2026 company announcement, distributed through mid-east.info, describing PepsiCo agreements with Green Iraq Company (GICO) and Baghdad Soft Drinks Company. The GICO agreement envisages manufacturing expansion and the transfer of irrigation and farming knowledge. No GICO investment amount, potato throughput or commissioning timetable is disclosed. The separate target of more than 250 million beverage cases relates to Baghdad Soft Drinks and must not be presented as potato-chip capacity. [12]
For development research, the case concerns how contracting bundles market access with inputs, advice and quality requirements. Such a bundle can alter technology adoption and risk allocation. It can also select farmers already better equipped to meet the requirements. Differences between participating and non-participating farms therefore cannot automatically be attributed to the contract; the reviewed accounts do not resolve that selection problem.
Kurdistan Holland: storage first, a processing line still developing
CABI’s June 2025 account describes a Netherlands Enterprise Agency-supported partnership involving Kurdistan Holland, the University of Duhok, the Directorate of Agriculture and HZPC. It reports that cold storage operating since 2023 held 10,000 tonnes from the 2024 harvest and also supported imported seed-potato storage. Training reached more than 400 stakeholders. A French-fry line was then expected in 2025. [10]
A Netherlands agricultural attaché update published on 25 May 2026 still described the potato-processing factory as under construction, alongside operating cold storage. The later account qualifies the earlier schedule: the available evidence does not justify calling the factory commissioned. French fries and potato chips also represent different processing investments and should not be conflated. [11]
The sequencing reveals a coordination mechanism: storage and seed supply can develop before processing capacity. Its distributional effect depends on access conditions, charges, payment timing and who bears quality rejection. Published accounts establish the physical and institutional relationship but do not provide enough farm-level evidence to estimate those effects. The case is therefore informative about the mechanism of change, less conclusive about its incidence.
Beirut Erbil: an additional processor relationship
An August 2025 company-supplied account published by PotatoPro describes a Dutch diplomatic visit to Beirut Erbil Potato Processing Company and discussions of its receipt of locally grown potatoes and processing operations. It identifies another participant in the northern processing network, but the visit is not evidence of a new financing commitment. Verified current utilization and investment amounts were not disclosed in the material reviewed. [13]
Water productivity across scales
The most concrete recent irrigation example is the February 2026 inauguration reported by FAO and the Ministry of Water Resources. In Al-Hilal, Muthanna, the Al-Ghadir Water User Association project covered 160 dunums and combined a closed pressure system, a 110 kW pump, 4,600 metres of pipes, 21 intakes and 12,300 metres of subsurface drainage. A second intervention in Abbasiyah, Najaf, rehabilitated 4,000 metres of canals serving 2,500 dunums. These are disclosed works and service areas, not measured national water savings. [6]
The Muthanna scope is particularly relevant to the debate over drip irrigation. It brings water conveyance and drainage into the same project. A pressure network can create the conditions for more controlled application, but its existence does not mean that every served field uses drip or that crop output per cubic metre has been independently measured.
The denominator determines the claim
FAO’s guidance on real water savings distinguishes reduced withdrawals from reduced consumption and non-recoverable flows. Seepage or runoff avoided at a field may previously have supplied another user. Raising output per unit applied can therefore improve farm performance without creating an equivalent basin saving. [28]
Three metrics answer different questions: marketable yield per unit of irrigation applied describes delivery productivity; yield per unit of actual evapotranspiration describes productivity relative to consumption; net income per unit consumed adds prices and costs. None alone establishes equitable allocation. Crop substitution can improve the income metric while changing food output, labour demand or total consumption.
FAO’s WaPOR framework uses remotely sensed actual evapotranspiration and biomass to support spatial water-productivity analysis. Such layers can help identify persistent contrasts within an irrigation landscape, but they do not directly measure farm abstraction, contamination, crop-grade rejection or control over income. Ground observations remain necessary to interpret the mechanism behind a spatial pattern. [29]
Solar pumping adds an incentive effect: lower marginal pumping costs can support more reliable irrigation while encouraging additional abstraction or area expansion. This is a plausible response, not a measured effect in the named Iraqi projects. The relevant comparison includes the production response and the resource balance, rather than assuming an energy saving is also a water saving.
Rice and protected cultivation: identifiable demonstrations
FAO reported mechanized rice transplanting in Najaf in June 2026 under the GCF-supported programme: a 100-dunum pilot with an intended expansion to 800 dunums. This is a technology trial and stated target, not proof that the expansion occurred or that a particular percentage of water was saved. Demonstration performance and commercial adoption remain separate stages. [20]
The May 2026 Dutch update also identifies hydroponic leafy-green production in Sharazur using Dutch technology, and a HollandDoor/Green Solutions cucumber-and-tomato pilot in Sulaymaniyah addressing varieties, packaging, food safety and supply-chain coordination. The source does not disclose a national adoption rate or investment return. These are specific examples of introducing production and post-harvest practices together. [11]
FAO’s April 2026 listing includes 20-metre WaPOR areas for Erbil and West Gharraf, with Najaf marked as no longer receiving new data. That provides a concrete starting point for spatial comparison, while making dataset period and update status part of the interpretation. [29]
Investment and implementation platforms
Food manufacturing and bulk agricultural logistics
IFC’s Edita Iraq disclosure describes a proposed loan of up to US$25 million for Iraq production lines, property and working capital, alongside working-capital needs in Egypt. It was approved on 27 August 2026 and remained pending disbursement in the 25 September update. The Iraqi business, Ahramat Al-Nile, formerly TJA, is disclosed as 51% owned by Tuama Jebur Abbas and 49% by Edita’s ADGM subsidiary. The plan targets more than doubling capacity through new lines by 2028. The entire financing amount should not be described as Iraqi factory capital expenditure. [14]
Sama Al-Manar/Tiryaki represents a different segment: bulk food and feed infrastructure at Umm Qasr. IFC’s December 2023 announcement described US$112.5 million of financing, including US$66 million from IFC, US$31.5 million from FMO and US$15 million from Proparco, supporting soybean crushing and corn storage. The contemporaneous planned crushing capacity was 3,000 tonnes a day. That historical design figure is not verified 2026 throughput. IFC’s project record reports investment in April 2024. [15], [16]
In September 2025, IFC separately announced work with Tiryaki on feasibility studies for sustainable wheat infrastructure, including storage and renewable energy. A feasibility partnership is earlier-stage than a financed construction project. These developments connect manufacturing with trade, storage and feed availability; they do not necessarily imply an equivalent expansion in domestically grown raw materials. [17]
| Programme / actors | Disclosed scope and latest relevant status |
|---|---|
| SRVALI / FAO, Iraqi ministries, GCF, Canada and Sida | US$39 million total programme announced May 2025 for Karbala, Najaf and Muthanna. Irrigation, solar systems, land restoration and water-user institutions. Total includes co-financing; it is not a single equipment contract. [7] |
| Dairy aggregation / Ministry of Agriculture, FAO, World Bank-hosted I3RF | Launched 29 September 2026; approximately 7,000 rural households targeted. Productive assets, farm management and market integration. Targets, not achieved benefits. [19] |
| Land monitoring / Ministry of Environment, FAO, GEF | 2026 equipment handover and specialist training support soil, water and land-degradation monitoring. Delivered inputs are distinct from environmental outcomes. [8] |
| Potato partnership / Kurdistan Holland, RVO, CABI, HZPC, Duhok institutions | Storage and training reported; processing factory still described as under construction in May 2026. [10], [11] |
A related FAO dairy-equipment tender, reference 2026/RNEXD/FNIRQ/138221, was published on 8 September 2026 with an 8 October deadline. That deadline had passed at this report’s cut-off. The public notice establishes a procurement exercise, not an award; its connection to the newly launched dairy project is not established in the reviewed material. [25]
Adaptation, inclusion and development outcomes
The strongest contribution of the 2025–2026 evidence is the emergence of connected implementation platforms. Southern irrigation projects join infrastructure with drainage and institutions; conservation investments widen the basis for biological adaptation; processors and dairy programmes organize market relationships. The unresolved question is how these changes interact, and whose resilience improves.
| Intervention | Outcome that would substantiate adaptation | Trade-off or inference limit |
|---|---|---|
| Pressure irrigation and drainage | Stable marketable yield alongside sustained root-zone condition and reliable delivery | Reduced application does not establish reduced basin consumption; drainage transfers salts. |
| Plant genetic resources and seed systems | Useful diversity reaches farmers and performs across relevant stress environments | Storage capacity is not varietal deployment; standardized markets may narrow adoption. |
| Processor-linked potato production | More stable net farm returns and lower losses across seasons | Participation may favour better-resourced growers; rejection and payment terms allocate risk. |
| Dairy aggregation | Milk-quality gains, reliable marketing and increased producer-controlled income | Household counts do not establish inclusion, diet improvement or benefit distribution. |
| Reclaimed-water systems | Consistent treatment and crop suitability with sustainable local operation | Water quantity, contaminant exposure and receiving-environment effects can diverge. |
Inclusion changes the interpretation of performance
The September 2026 dairy initiative explicitly targets small-scale livestock producers, including women. [19] An aggregate household target does not reveal who controls productive assets, receives payments or supplies additional labour. The same issue applies to irrigation modernization: average gains can conceal differences between tenants and owners, well users and canal-dependent farms, or head-end and tail-end water users. These are analytical dimensions, not distributional findings established by the current project disclosures.
From a favourable year to resilience
The wet 2025–2026 season complicates simple before-and-after attribution. Yield gains following installation can partly reflect rainfall; apparent adoption success can reflect unusually favourable prices or subsidized inputs. More persuasive evidence distinguishes those effects and follows performance through contrasting seasons, including continued use and maintenance after project support. This is especially important where new hardware, agronomy and contracting arrive together.
Iraq’s emerging agricultural investments create credible pathways toward adaptation, but the most consequential outcomes are joint ones: dependable production with a sustainable salt and water balance; commercialization with broad participation; and conservation translated into useful diversity. These joint outcomes provide a more demanding measure of recovery than either harvest volume or announced investment.
Sources and research scope
Original desk-research synthesis, with a research cut-off of 10 October 2026. Historical baselines, project targets and financing stages are dated in the text. Cross-project connections and causal interpretations are analytical synthesis, not results of a new field study.
1. FAO GIEWS — Iraq country brief, 1 September 2026
2. UN Iraq — Rain Brief, 5 June 2026
6. FAO — Muthanna and Najaf irrigation models, February 2026
7. FAO — US$39 million southern climate-resilience launch, 26 May 2025
8. FAO — land-degradation monitoring equipment handover, 2026
9. Reuters — Basra date-palm tissue culture and salinity, 30 January 2026
10. CABI — Kurdistan potato value chain, 3 June 2025
12. PepsiCo announcement syndicated by mid-east.info, 21 July 2026
13. PotatoPro — company-supplied Beirut Erbil visit account, 12 August 2025
14. IFC — Edita Iraq, project 52787; disclosure updated 25 September 2026
15. IFC — Sama Al-Manar financing announcement, 13 December 2023
16. IFC — Sama Al-Manar/Tiryaki Iraq, project 46252; historical investment record
17. IFC — Iraq partnerships and Tiryaki feasibility work, 13 September 2025
18. Reuters — Iraq–Turkey water infrastructure agreement, 2 November 2025
19. FAO — dairy and farm-management initiative launch, 29 September 2026
20. FAO — Najaf climate-smart rice demonstration, June 2026
21. NASA Earth Observatory — Dust Storm Sweeps Through Iraq, 18 April 2025
22. UNEP — land degradation and sand storms, 6 July 2026
23. FAO — Egypt–Iraq date-palm tissue culture and pest-management training, 22 September 2026
25. UNGM / FAO — dairy equipment tender 2026/RNEXD/FNIRQ/138221; deadline 8 October 2026
26. IWMI — Maysan constructed wetland, reuse and community governance, 10 October 2025
27. FAO — Sulaymaniyah Gene/Seed Bank inauguration, 23 August 2026
29. FAO — WaPOR data and water-productivity framework, accessed 10 October 2026