Vets aid in rebuilding Iraqi agriculture

Progressive Dairyman Staff Writer Alisa Anderson

Daryl Jacobs, an Idaho veterinarian, was recently talking to an Iraqi businessman who wanted to start a feedlot. He was going to buy 28 6-month-old bull calves to raise until they were ready to slaughter.

“I told him they would fight less and gain weight better if they were steers, but he didn’t seem to understand. Nothing here gets gelded,” Jacobs says.

Jacobs, formerly a public health veterinarian from Wendell, Idaho, is stationed with the U.S. Army in Iraq. He has been in Baghdad, Baqubah and Mosul. Recently he has returned to Baghdad and has been working with the Provisionary Reconstruction Team as part of the agri-business program. He trains Iraqi farmers and veterinarians and helps implement programs to benefit the country’s agricultural economy. The team’s main goal is to rebuild agriculture and to train the people to be able to take over once the Americans leave.

“Iraq, a country that was the Fertile Crescent, is now so damaged by drought and war that most agricultural products are imported,” Jacobs says.

Dr. William Moyer, the department head for large animal clinical sciences at Texas A&M University, also went to Iraq with a team from the Borlaug Institute for International Agriculture in May 2008. Their team worked to come up with solutions to restore the agricultural system. “Iraq was sort of the original bread basket. They’ve been having problems for decades,” Moyer says.

As an ag adviser, Jacobs currently works to improve the herd health of sheep, goats, cattle and poultry. According to Jacobs, the favorite type of livestock is fat-tailed sheep. Both sheep and cows are milked, but cows are not popular to raise because of the difficulty of accessing enough feed for them.

Because of the drought and the lack of ability to irrigate, the land is unable to produce all the feed the farmers need, so grazers such as goats and sheep are preferred.

“In order to support dairy or sheep or chickens or any animal products, they’ve got to get the crop situation upright,” Moyer says. “If you’ve got to support an animal population by importing feed, you’re out of business.”

The cows in Iraq are a smaller type of Holstein, called a Friesian, and a few Asian water buffalo.

“The cows just roam around freely. I have seen them eating in between houses, stopping traffic while they cross busy roads and eating whatever they can find in roadside ditches. A few times I have seen small herds of maybe 20 cows, grazing in what might have been a hay field. I can’t say I’ve seen a dairy cow that is lactating,” Jacobs says.

Moyer says he’s seen a few small dairies in Iraq, ranging in size from five to 20 cows. They have a unique situation. Lack of electricity makes refrigeration and pasteurization rare and therefore the marketing of dairy goods almost impossible. Milk collection is nonexistent, so most of the dairies feed individual families.

Besides lack of electricity, other challenges to dairy include a lack of veterinarians and veterinary care. Moyer says any agricultural or veterinary schools were shut down decades ago. Lack of refrigeration also discourages the use of vaccines, and diseases aren’t controlled like they are in the U.S.

In April, Jacobs met with the Iraqi state veterinarian to see what he could do to help. The veterinarian asked for Merck veterinary manuals for the more than 70 vets that he works with. “I asked, ‘In Arabic or English?’ He said the vets could read English. So I put in a request to order 100 manuals in English,” Jacobs says.

Jacobs meets with a government officials to negotiate and buy equipment and supplies. “He really enjoys working with them. He thinks they’re great. They want help, and they love the military. These people really want to work, and they really want to bring their lives back together,” says Anita Jacobs, Daryl’s wife, who lives in Idaho.

Moyer also enjoyed his time in Iraq working with the farmers and says he would go back if he could. “I certainly got the impression that these people sure understood hard work and soil. Let’s face it, they’re some of the oldest farmers on the planet. I think farmers for the most part are pretty much the same no matter where you go. Some just have more tools than others,” Moyer says. PD