As Oil Prices Dive, Iraqi Kurds Seek To Diversify Economy

Mam Rostam, Iraq, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 21st Oct, 2020 ) :Iraq's Kurdish region has for decades lived off its oil wealth, but plummeting energy prices amid the pandemic and financial mismanagement are forcing locals to return to long abandoned farms.

Civil servants from the northern region's bloated public sector have gone without pay and many are now turning back to agriculture and other businesses to make ends meet.

On a rugged hillside some 50 kilometres (30 miles) east of Arbil, the booming regional capital, vineyards are ripe for harvesting as a new source of income.

Abdallah Hassan, 51, a civil servant from the nearby village of Mam Rostam, has returned to harvest the grapes, used to produce raisins and vine leaves, for the first time in almost 20 years.

"There is hardly any work left for us and there are no salaries," he said, complaining that the regional government now "only pays wages every couple of months".

"It's better for farmers to tend to their fields than wait for the payday or for charity."