Soil and Water in the Middle East

Two opinions about agriculture in the Middle East are widely held. One is that a region that was once the granary of the ancient world has played out its usefulness forever, exhausted its soils, denuded its forests and has generally worn out its resources beyond repair. The other looks to water as the rejuvenator that can in short order restore the region to its former productiveness.

Both judgments are myths. As to the first, the region is not played out. With appropriate modern farm technology practices and management, and freed from restrictions, inhibitions, and rigidities that lie in the political, social, and institutional field, the natural resources of the Middle East could permit production on a vastly higher level. In a matter of two to three decades, more or less, agricultural output could be doubled in Egypt, multiplied tenfold in Iraq, and increased to intermediate degrees in the other countries.

As to the second, water alone is not the key. It is only one among many necessary inputs, and it is not now and will not for a considerable time be a limiting factor in most of the region. Indeed, neither water nor any other single input is the magic wand that will quickly and painlessly produce agricultural plenty and prosperity. There is a whole package of separate but closely interrelated programs that will lead to sustained advances in agriculture. An improved variety of wheat, grown in adequately irrigated and properly drained soil, with good land tillage and uniform seeding, nourished enough fertilizers of the right kind, protected against weeds and infestations of diseases and insects, may be tremendously productive. The same wheat in an unimproved environment may produce little more than does the old variety.

Several properly coordinated improvements form the productive package; each part, alone, has limited value and under some conditions might even be a handicap. Nor will all of them suffice unless a variety of conditions can be met—unless the prices offered for the commodities produced can be counted on to leave a reasonable margin of profit; unless there are ways of obtaining necessary inputs at prices that permit this profit margin; unless the products can be easily moved to market, and so on.

In this context, water is an important ingredient. So are suitable soils to receive it. And suitable soils are probably scarcer in the Middle East than water. To make the package analogy does not mean that the significance of one component vis-a-vis another will not vary from country to country, or that one remains powerless to move unless and until all the pieces are nicely lined up. It does mean, however, that sustained rapid agricultural progress will require much hard work, sound planning, and competent execution of plans over a period of years. It also means that nearly all of the ingredients for agricultural success in the Middle East must come from within the region. To be sure, outside help will be of value. Especially in the initial phase, new technology and new plant and livestock material from abroad will be indispensable; capital limitations may be eased by foreign grants or loans; and technical expertise may fill in shortages in locally available manpower. These aids are not to be underestimated. But basically, agricultural progress will either capture the imagination of the government and people of the country itself, or it will not take place.

What we refer to as the potential of Middle Eastern agriculture is more easily defined in terms of what it is not than what it is. It is not a forecast or projection for a given target date. Even less is it a program or a project or a group of projects. Instead, it is a racking up of output levels that could be achieved over the span of a generation or so on the basis of natural resource endowment, best practices now known and carried out elsewhere, and a favorable infrastructure that furnishes agriculture with what these practices require if they are to be effective in raising output.

So interpreted, potential grain production, perhaps the single most significant measure for a region in which grain is the staff of life, could rise from its present 11 million to 50 million tons. At that rate of output, the region would be a net exporter of grain in a volume that raises questions of export outlets. Production of other crops could rise similarly, in some instances perhaps even more sharply.

Another measure is gross income of agriculture, and here some rough calculations lead us to estimate the possibility of a rise from $3,500 million to $9,100 million a year. The degree to which such an increase would result in higher per capita income is, of course, dependent upon the rate of population growth. In general, one can judge that if present rates were to continue unchecked on the farm much if not most of the estimated growth in output would be dissipated with little increase in per capita income.

Achievement of what we judge to be the potential of Middle Eastern agricultural resources might require additional annual outlays of roughly $1,000 million for fertilizer, of roughly $500 million for farm machinery including tractors, and of perhaps $500 million for other current physical inputs, above all pesticides and the like. Much, perhaps most, of the fertilizer, machinery, and other inputs could be produced within the region.

The advantages of a regional organization of agricultural supply are obvious in terms of lower cost and assured access. On such a basis, tractor manufacture, for example, might attain a volume sufficient to render it economically feasible within the region. Development of irrigation and drainage over some 25 years or so would cost in the neighborhood of $300 million per year, including cost of capital, operation, and maintenance. Then, the additional costs here identified would run in the order of $2,300 million per year. Compared with an estimated increase in gross output of about $5,500 million, this would not appear to be an infeasible proposition.

The opportunity to use natural resources and modern technology to more than double agricultural output, the necessity to overcome severely inhibiting institutional and cultural barriers and political uncertainties if the potential is to be realized, and the compelling need to accelerate economic growth before rapidly growing population makes such growth well-nigh impossible, all combine to present the Arab countries of the Middle East with a great challenge, no matter whether it be a doubling of output in Egypt or a rise of many hundred percent in Iraq or Syria.

To translate that challenge into a series of concrete steps is the task of administrators and planners who are intimately acquainted with a given country. But there is a useful checklist of things to keep in mind. First, in the absence of unlimited means, concentration of effort is likely to bear better fruit than dispersal effort. A given locality, a given product, a given group of farmers—or any other well-identified sector that can be made to demonstrate dramatic improvement—will serve as a focus of attention and stimulate interest and then emulation. Second, a price structure that will allow farmers to make a good profit will lead them to abandon traditional ways and to assume what they will otherwise consider undue risks. Third, only a government convinced that it must put its agricultural house in order before it can embark on great forward drives elsewhere will be able to cope successfully with the many-sided problems associated with agricultural development. Fourth, agriculture is unlikely to advance as the result of pushing one particular input, be it water or fertilizer or the extension services. A convergence of different programs focusing on different aspects of the total problem will bring development.