Iraq to import grain from Canada

"Iraq, which imports 80 percent of its grain needs, said it agreed to buy ``huge'' amounts of wheat from Canada to diversify imports and build stockpiles after drought damaged crops in the Middle Eastern country.

The Middle Eastern nation passed a law to make it easier to attract foreign investments in agriculture and speed up payment for traders, Al-Sudani said in the statement.

Agriculture in Iraq, a country of 30 million people, has deteriorated after 13 years of United Nations sanctions that ended with the U.S.-led invasion.

Iraq's wheat output is expected to drop to 1.3 million tons in 2008-2009 from 2.3 million a year earlier while imports are forecast to rise to 3.7 million tons from 3.5 million, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates.

Most of Iraq wheat imports come from the U.S., followed by Canada, the government said."

I have posted before about Iraqi agriculture (or what remains of it) and how the US and the free world (also dubbed the International Community) are putting their hands together to help Iraq become a nation totally dependent on imports of food and of farm inputs in which rural poverty will be a thing of the past as all the rural poor will have been exterminated.