Shafaq News- Baghdad

Iraq imported nearly 90,000 tons of potatoes worth about $52.4 million in 2025, exposing a gap between domestic production and consumption that requires greater investment in productivity, storage, and marketing, economic researcher Ali Karim Edheeb told Shafaq News, citing IndexBox agricultural market data.

Iran, Egypt, and Turkiye are among the main regional suppliers of potatoes to Iraq, Edheeb noted, with prices influenced by transportation costs, prices in exporting countries, and weather conditions affecting harvests.

Pointing to tomatoes as another example of fluctuations between local output and market demand, Edheeb cited IndexBox data showing that Iraq’s fresh tomato imports fell 94.9% to around 13,000 tons in 2023 after reaching roughly 350,000 tons in 2021, a decline he linked to changes in domestic production and government import restrictions rather than necessarily weaker consumption.

Edheeb argued that reducing reliance on agricultural imports requires making Iraqi produce more competitive in quantity, price, quality, and year-round availability rather than relying solely on trade restrictions, allowing a greater share of agricultural spending to remain within the domestic economy.

Iraq’s Agriculture Ministry is already enforcing a multi-level import policy tied to domestic supply under its agricultural calendar system. Ministry adviser Mahdi Dhamad Al-Qaisi told Shafaq News in June that the policy includes seasonal bans on selected crops and livestock products, including potatoes and tomatoes, to protect local producers and strengthen food security, adding that Iraq had achieved self-sufficiency in seven key crops and increased agricultural exports to around two million tons last year.

Read more: Iraq’s import trap: A system that produces demand, not supply