Walnut harvesting season begins in Hawraman as drought kills large numbers of walnut trees

Variety 09:24 PM - 2021-09-25
 Photo Credit: Shad Ibrahim

Photo Credit: Shad Ibrahim

Walnut harvesting season often begins after September 15 in the Hawraman region, 27.7 km northeast of Halabja.

Farmers in the Hawraman region go to their orchards early in the morning and pick their famous and tasty walnuts until evening hours.

Hawraman region is famous for having the best kind of walnuts. It is even exported to central and southern Iraq, as well as other parts of Kurdistan

According to farmers of the region, this year is different from the previous years. Their harvested walnuts are not as much as the past years as most of their walnut trees have dried up due to this year's drought and lack of rain. The owners of the orchards say that they have never suffered as much as this year. They used to pick 17,000 walnuts from their trees, but this year, the largest amount that farmers manage to pick is only 5000 walnuts. 

During the last 35 years, Darwesh Afan has been harvesting walnuts for most of the orchard owners in the area, but this year, he only harvested walnuts of his orchard as drought and lack of rain led to the drying up of most walnut trees in the region.

Darwish Afan told PUKmedia while he was drinking tea as he was having a break from picking walnuts: "I have been working as a nut gatherer since I was 20 years old. I climb up walnut trees and pick the walnuts with a long log. It has been 35 years since I first started doing this job."

"Every year, we start harvesting walnuts after September 15 in Hawraman, but this year was very different due to lack of rain and drought which has greatly affected Hawraman's walnut trees," Afan said.

Kurdistan Region has witnessed a relatively low rain and snowfall during the past winter and spring in compression with the previous years which has raised concerns of many, especially farmers who greatly rely on water for agriculture. 

"During my 35 years of picking walnuts, I have never seen a year like this year," Afan said.

Afan's wife, Kwestan Rahim, works alongside her husband in the fields. She gathers the fallen walnuts, cleans them, and puts them in bags.

"We take the gathered walnuts home and dry them up to later sell them in the market," Rahim said. 

Rahim also pointed out that they even benefit from the endocarps and husk of the walnuts as most people use them in making henna (natural hair dye) because it has great benefit to the hair. 



Reported by Jamal Sargati 
PUKmedia

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