September 12-14
by Warren L. Nelson
The Agriculture Ministry has announced it will cut the flow of water to farmers almost in half starting September 23 in the most drastic action taken yet to confront the nation’s water crisis.
It remains to be seen whether such a drastic move will really be carried out—or is even necessary. Such a severe cut threatens the very existence of Iranian agriculture.
Some analysts speculated the announcement was really a tactical effort to scare farmers into adopting water conservation.
Others pointed out that the government doesn’t control all of the water supply and that one of the major problems is farmers digging wells and sucking huge volumes of water out of below-ground water aquifers on their own. They said the announced government action could just make the problem of water aquifers being drained even more acute.
But the practical effect of any reduction in the agricultural water supply will be to end efforts to make Iran self-sufficient in foodstuffs. And agricultural self-sufficiency is one of the primary goals of the revolutionary ideology, which believes foreigners want to control Iran by making it dependent on food imports.
The announcement of the new water plan questioned the goal of agricultural self-sufficiency and might just start an entirely new confrontation with hardliners who are already displeased with Rohani Administration policies.
About 93 percent of Iran’s annual water use goes to agriculture, according to Iran’s Environmental Protection Administration. By comparison, in the United States, about 84 percent of annual freshwater usage goes to agriculture. The US is a huge agricultural producer and one of the world’s major exporters of agricultural products.
Only about 6 percent of the water consumed in the United States is used in homes. And three-quarters of that water goes for showers and flushing toilets.
Many water scientists in Iran have studied water usage in the country and report that much of the water used in agriculture is wasted because the usual irrigation method is to flood fields, as a result of which much of the water evaporates. In cities, much of the water is also wasted because pipes are old and huge volumes of water simply leak out before reaching residences.
The main effort of UN water programs around the world is to convince farmers to use better methods of irrigation, such as drip irrigation, in which water is delivered drop-by-drop to the base of each individual plant.
The new water program was announced Sunday by Moham-mad-Hossain Shariatmadar, an official of the Agriculture Ministry. Agriculture Minister Mahmud Hojati did not make the announcement, hinting at some disagreement within the ministry.
But the Agriculture Ministry doesn’t handle water supply. That falls under the Energy Ministry, which also was not part of the announcement.
Shariatmadar said that normally 85 to 90 billion cubic meters of water is provided each year to agriculture. Starting September 23, he said, the annual supply will be cut to 50 billion cubic meters.
He said the goal of agricultural self-sufficiency cannot be pursued at the cost of the destruction of Iran’s water resources. He said food security cannot be gained if water security is lost.
The main drive in food security has been to produce domestically all the wheat Iran needs. That goal has been reached in only a single year a decade ago. Shariatmadar did not say how much wheat the country would try to grow domestically starting next year, but he said large-scale wheat production will not be feasible until methods have been adopted to use water far more efficiently.
He did not address what methods farmers should use, simply leaving them to face a water supply cut by almost half, if the announced policy is really carried out.
Shariatmadar said Iran should not grow any watermelon or potatoes for export because of the water consumed by them. Then, he said, “We really shouldn’t grow potatoes at all.” But he announced no bans on growing any products and did not speak of charging farmers the real cost of the water they receive. He only spoke of the reduction in water to be supplied to farmers by the government—and that number was a national figure that did not tell farmers in individual water regions how they would be impacted.
The announcement included a table of water resources needed to produce goods: 15,000 liters per kilo of beef; 8,200 liters per kilo of cotton; 4,000 liters per kilo of chicken; and 1,300 liters per kilo of wheat.
