Hundreds of Iraqi farmers protested Saturday against the government's policy of curbing land cultivation to preserve dwindling water supplies, an AFP correspondent said.
Year-on-year droughts and declining rainfall have brought agriculture to its knees in a country still recovering from decades of war and chaos, and where rice and bread are diet staples.
Water scarcity has forced many farmers to abandon their plots, and authorities have drastically reduced farm activity to ensure sufficient drinking water for Iraq's 46 million people.
In the Ghammas area in the southern province of Diwaniyah, hundreds of farmers, including from neighboring provinces, gathered to urge the government to allow them to farm their lands.
They called on the authorities to compensate them for their losses and distribute water for agriculture.
"We have come from four provinces to demand the rights and compensation owed to farmers," one of the protesters, Mahmoud Saleh, said.
"The farmer has been wronged. They will not let us cultivate the wheat crop next year, and they have cut off water supplies," he added.
Mohammed Amoush, who used to cultivate 100 dunum (25 hectares) of farms, said "our land has become fallow."
"There is no agriculture, only financial loss. We are devastated," he added.
Iraq's historically fertile plains stretched along the once-mighty Tigris and Euphrates, but water levels have plummeted drastically over the past decades.
In addition to the drought, authorities also blame upstream dams in neighboring countries for reducing the rivers' flow.
In recent weeks, the Euphrates has seen its lowest levels in decades, especially in the southern provinces, and water reserves in artificial lakes are at their lowest in the country's recent history.
Iraq currently receives less than 35 percent of its share of the river water allocated according to preexisting agreements and understandings with neighboring countries, according to authorities.
Decades of war have also left the country's water management systems in disrepair.
