The Iraq Horticulture Development Program (IHD) is collaborating with stakeholders and local farmers in multiple areas to promote climate-smart horticulture solutions using multi-span greenhouses to produce a wide variety of crops. His Excellency Michel Retenaar, Ambassador of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, visited the first IHD project site located in Gird Mala, Erbil in February 2021. The Ambassador was accompanied by Maaike Kaizer, Deputy Consul General of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, on a tour of the project site with the IHD team and the Erbil implementation partner, Hussein Dizzaye, and learned about the use of climate-smart and innovative multi-span greenhouses. The high-tech greenhouse, which grows a wide variety of cherry tomatoes and bell peppers, utilizes climate control units to monitor heat and humidity, as well as an advanced fertigation unit.
In 2021, IHD managed to install a total of 18 greenhouses in Ninewa region. Funded by the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the program reached out to many farmers and landowners to collaborate on the implementation of this community project introducing protected agriculture and irrigation technologies. A second visit was arranged for the Ambassador to the IHD Mosul Community Project in July 2021, The Ambassador was able to taste the delicious cucumbers grown in the greenhouses from Dutch seeds. The Ambassador had the opportunity to learn how IHD assisted beneficiaries and community members by providing technical assistance and improving their livelihoods. He was able to meet with selected beneficiaries, primarily IDP families from local camps, who were pleased with the project's long-term viability. Both the Ambassador and the IHD team saw the project as contributing to a shift in agricultural culture in Ninewa toward the use of more greenhouses.
