Tobacco once formed a major part of the economy here. It supplied state-owned cigarette factories in Erbil and Sulaymaniyah, which made famous local brands like Sumer and Al-Jumhuriya.Now, just a few farmers plant tobacco on small farms in the mountains around Soran and Ranya. Sulaymaniyah’s cigarette factory rolled its last smoke in 2005, and the vast industrial complex is now an art gallery and culture space. “We plant it because it is manageable and we know how to do it,” said Sleman, 40, who lives in Khanaqa, a village about 80 kilometers (50 miles) northeast of Erbil. Last year, however, he only sold a fraction of his tobacco harvest because he could not get a good price from a wholesaler. The portion he did sell went for around 10,000 Iraqi dinars ($7.60) per kilogram. Bales of the unsold tobacco sit in a nearby shed. He does not know what price he might get this year. The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) hopes to reinvigorate the agricultural sector as a way to diversify its economy and limit its dependence on oil, but the dynamics that destroyed wide-scale tobacco farming are still relevant (ICE AMMAN)

Fonte notizia: Stampa Locale