"Production will be down. Definitely there will be a great impact," Agriculture Minister Ali al-Bahadili told the Agence France-Presse.

Iraq's economy is now synonymous with oil, but it wasn't always so. Since ancient times, the land -- typically watered by rain in the North and irrigated by the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in the middle -- has been a center of agriculture in the Middle East, producing wheat, barley and dates, among other crops.

Agriculture is the second-largest contributor to Iraq's GDP behind oil. It employs a significant percentage of the labor force, although estimates of that percentage vary. Kirk Miller of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Foreign Agricultural Service put it at 25 percent in recent testimony before Congress, while a 2006 report from the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization estimated 37 percent.

But decades of mismanagement, shifting land policies, neglect and international sanctions strained Iraq's agricultural sector even before 2003, and five years of war has taken a further toll.

Slide from self-sufficiency
In the 1950s, Iraq was self-sufficient in agricultural production, according to a 2004 Congressional Research Service report. But by the 1960s it imported 15 percent of its food, by 1980 it imported half, and by 2002 it relied on imports for 80 to 100 percent of many staples, including wheat, rice and vegetable oil, under the United Nations oil-for-food program.

Part of the reason for that slide from self-sufficiency was a rapidly growing population that outpaced production capabilities. Throughout the 1980s the Iraqi government heavily subsidized agricultural production. But by the mid-1990s economic problems related to international sanctions ended much of that support, and lack of resources such as fertilizer, farm machinery and pesticides meant production dropped. Also, water pumps and irrigation canals -- which are essential to most farming in the country and which must be cleaned and repaired each year -- were neglected, leading to problems with soil salinity.

Since 2003, the war has only made things worse, according to Iraq's agriculture minister in the AFP interview.

"There are so many other problems related to the farming -- lack of electricity, poor roads, the security situation," he told the news agency. "The soil in most of the areas from the southern and middle part of Iraq is saline. You cannot use fertilizer if you have bad soil. That is why we are not getting enough yield. We also need new machinery and better varieties of plant. The roads are not safe for farmers to get their produce to market."

Kamil Mahdi, an Iraqi economist who teaches at the University of Exeter, said that the only reason agriculture survives in Iraq -- usually as a local, isolated enterprise -- is that people have no other opportunities.

"The subsidized inputs have essentially disappeared, and there's been a complete failure in carrying out public projects like irrigation and drainage," he said. "It's really a dire situation for agriculture. It survives only because there's nothing else -- no other potential for employment."

Reconstruction efforts
Some U.S. and international organizations are working to help rehabilitate Iraq's agricultural infrastructure.

Since 2006, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Foreign Agricultural Service has sent employees to Iraq to serve on Provincial Reconstruction Teams -- groups of civilians that work with military units on reconstruction projects. As of late January, 23 USDA agricultural advisers were working across Iraq.

"Part of what we're trying to do is work with the Iraqi government to help them provide the kinds of services they would in any country," said Grant Pettrie, who recently completed his tenure as the U.S. agriculture adviser liaison in Baghdad.

That effort includes agricultural extension services such as introducing new products and training farmers on how to use them, and basic infrastructure upkeep such as cleaning and repairing irrigation pumps and canals.

"The idea is to work closely enough with the Iraqi government that they can do it themselves," Pettrie said. "Because when we do it, who's going to do it in a year?"

USDA advisers also are working on local projects, such as developing a beekeepers association in Babil province.

"Honey is actually a good moneymaker, and a good way for farmers to diversify their income," said Pettrie.

The United Nations' Food and Agriculture organization also is funding and carrying out a variety of projects, from fish farms to the date palm industry to rehabilitating food processing plants.

The U.S. Agency for International Development, meanwhile, has shifted the focus of its reconstruction efforts. From 2003 to 2006, the agency's program was called Agriculture Reconstruction and Development in Iraq. It focused on restoring and providing basic agricultural needs such as seeds, veterinary services and irrigation.

Many of these projects are ongoing, but they are now under the umbrella of a program called Inma, which is the Arabic word for growth. Inma is focused on developing the business side of Iraq's agricultural sector -- trying to revive private businesses such as date processing plants, restoring and reopening wholesale markets in Baghdad and other projects.

"We're trying to get private businesses back up and running in Iraq," said Ron Curtis, program manager for Inma.

Both Curtis and Pettrie say the biggest challenge they face is the security situation in the country, which can make it difficult to reach the places and people that they want.

"Violence levels are down, but it's still dangerous, and we don't have the freedom to travel as much as we'd like," Curtis said. "When we go to a factory -- we have people who are very experienced in canning, say ... if they can walk into a facility, they can identify problems immediately. Reading reports is a second-best way to do it."

Long-term issues
Iraqi economist Kamil Mahdi said he is worried that long-term issues are being ignored, such as the fact that the water that irrigates Iraqi fields is affected by dams in Turkey and Syria.

"The conditions of war and sanctions, over a long period of time when Iraq was isolated, made it impossible for Iraq to argue effectively for long-term water security," he said. "So there is a question of how that is going to be managed in the longer term."

And he questioned some of the agricultural laws put in place by the coalition provisional authority in 2004, which he said could pave the way for international agribusinesses to enter the Iraqi market in a way that would be detrimental to the average farmer.

"I think the challenge for Iraq is to develop the agricultural sector as a broad sector that encompasses large numbers of workers, large numbers of producers, that would have a broad product mix," he said.

But Pettrie and Curtis said they are starting to see some positive changes even at the most basic level.

"I'm already seeing interest [in agriculture] increasing," Pettrie said. "People are waking up to the idea that there's more than just oil here -- agriculture is the second-largest employer in the country. ... I can see that we've really started down a positive road."

-- By Lea Winerman, Online NewsHour