Shafaq News- Baghdad
Iraqi security forces sealed off Tahrir Square and the al-Jumhuriyah Bridge in central Baghdad on Monday, deploying ground units and closing the bridge in both directions as protesters prepared to gather for the second time in five weeks over unpaid crop revenues.
Shafaq News correspondent reported that the General Directorate of Traffic directed motorists temporarily to alternative routes.
The demonstration targets a debt the Iraqi state owes its own food producers. Iraq operates one of the world's largest government-run grain procurement systems, buying wheat directly from farmers at fixed state prices and distributing subsidized flour to nearly every household in the country through a national ration card program established during the sanctions era of the 1990s. The federal government allocated roughly 5.8 trillion Iraqi dinars (about $4.4 billion) for wheat procurement during the 2024 season alone. Farmers deliver their harvests to state warehouses, receive official receipts, and then wait, sometimes for months, to be paid.
Read more: Iraq's farmers fed the state. Now they're waiting to be paid.
In recent weeks, farmers from Najaf, Karbala, Al-Diwaniyah, and Babil —provinces that form the core of Iraq's central grain-producing belt— traveled to Baghdad to demonstrate publicly, calling for overdue payments, upward revision of wheat purchase prices, and compensation for crop losses caused by flooding and drought.
On May 3, security forces dispersed the protest using water hoses and electric stun devices, leaving at least 17 people injured, according to the General Federation of Agricultural Cooperative Associations. Caretaker Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani said at the time that he was following developments and directed authorities to investigate the security forces' conduct.
Finance Minister Faleh Al-Sari announced that farmer dues would be released following completion of the required financial processing, with disbursements to reach eligible recipients across all provinces. The cabinet had previously approved settlements for the 2024-2025 and 2025-2026 agricultural seasons and raised wheat procurement prices to 700,000 dinars (about $535) per ton for crops covered under the national agricultural plan.
The new protest comes days after Iraq's Ministries of Agriculture and Water Resources approved the 2026 summer agricultural plan, which designates cultivation areas for rice, yellow corn, and vegetables, and continues to rely on modern irrigation techniques to address chronic water shortages.