Iraq to use rotten dates as feedstock
The prime minister of Iraq has approved a project by an undisclosed UAE-based company to produce biofuel from rotting dates that would otherwise be wasted.
Iraq has the world's third largest oil reserves but its crumbling farm sector, which has suffered from decades of sanctions, isolation and war, is the country's leading employer.
A long drought has conspired with entrenched problems like high soil salinity, poor irrigation practices and a lack of proper seeds and fertiliser to hold back domestic farming and make Iraq heavily dependent on grain imports.
Iraqi officials are keen to boost agricultural productivity. Farmers will be happy to sell their rotten dates instead of throwing them away.
Iraq, whose date plantations pepper an otherwise parched landscape, used to be a leading date exporter.
The biofuel made from the perishing dates would be used domestically at first, then possibly later exported.
Iraq produces 350,000 tonnes of dates annually, a sharp fall from 900,000 tonnes produced before the US-led invasion to oust Saddam Hussein but still more than the 150,000 tonnes it currently consumes.
Iraq has the world's third largest oil reserves but its crumbling farm sector, which has suffered from decades of sanctions, isolation and war, is the country's leading employer.
A long drought has conspired with entrenched problems like high soil salinity, poor irrigation practices and a lack of proper seeds and fertiliser to hold back domestic farming and make Iraq heavily dependent on grain imports.
Iraqi officials are keen to boost agricultural productivity. Farmers will be happy to sell their rotten dates instead of throwing them away.
Iraq, whose date plantations pepper an otherwise parched landscape, used to be a leading date exporter.
The biofuel made from the perishing dates would be used domestically at first, then possibly later exported.
Iraq produces 350,000 tonnes of dates annually, a sharp fall from 900,000 tonnes produced before the US-led invasion to oust Saddam Hussein but still more than the 150,000 tonnes it currently consumes.
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