The Dutch Consul General in Erbil, Hans Akerboom, has stated that the Dutch government is continuing its extensive assistance to develop the autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) agricultural sector.
“The Netherlands (is) more or less the same size as the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, but still we are producing and exporting so many vegetables and fruits,” he said. “And we can only do that because we have a lot of innovation in the Netherlands. And if you look to the Kurdistan Region, it's also important that maybe one of those innovations be transferred to this region because you have so much land and the land is very fertile.”
Akerboom stressed that the KRG is now dependent on cheap imports of fruits and vegetables from other countries like Iran and Turkey: “And you pay a lot for that. The prices are very high and the quality is not fresh anymore. So, why should you do that when you have a lot of land and you can be innovative to produce your own products. As the Netherlands, we try to help you by doing so.”
Over the past few years, farmers in the Kurdistan Region have called on the KRG to block the significant flow of foreign products that are already produced or grown domestically, lowering market prices to the point where it is difficult to make a living.
Over the past two weeks, two separate agriculture-themed delegations from the Kurdistan Region have visited the Netherland, one made up of government specialists and a second comprised of local businessmen.
Source: kurdistan24.net