Research Garden DesignBrowse photos, get design ideas & see the hottest plants
For 10,000 years , farmers in Kurdistan , a region in northern Iraq , have cultivated a wealthiness of aboriginal crop that distribute throughout the man . Apricots , garbanzo , and onion flourished in the fields , straw and barley in the foothills . Today , after yr of wars , endorsement , and droughts , this dower of the Fertile Crescent is endangered . A team of colleagues and I traveled through Kurdistan , filming a documentary about the region ’s efforts to recoup its agricultural vitality . The project was produced in conjunction with the educational initiative Iraqi Seed Project . The interactive Web documentary , This Is Fertile Ground , was just released , and a more comprehensive pic unveiling in October .
Many Kurdish James Leonard Farmer maintain traditional methods of harvest . At the foot of the mountains , sodbuster cut texture with a scythe and gather bundles of barleycorn on their backbone . naturalize and wild grains have been ubiquitous on the Kurdish landscape for a longsighted clock time ; wheat , barleycorn , and lentils were first domesticated here around 8000 B.C.Read more in our story , Kurdistan : Recovering a Garden of Paradise . Photo by : Anna Laurent . VIEW THE COMPLETE drift
During our filming , we met official in parliament and government who urged that a national reconstruction include an embrace of the region ’s longsighted tradition of sustainable husbandry and craw diversity . In city and villages , we hear about attempt to uphold a finish of botanical literacy , especially after the national seed bank was destruct in a 2003 attack . A scientist we interview verbalise of a secret hoard of seeds she tuck and buried in her basement , while Hero Ibrahim Ahmed , the first lady of Iraq , described her years - long seeking to convalesce peril plants , including an autochthonous burgundy carrot . “ It was truly the garden of paradise , ” says Jamal Fouad , former diplomatic minister of Kurdish Agriculture Department who now hunt a precept farm with his married woman , Cathy . “ There is nothing that can not grow in this soil . But thing must change for our farmers . ”
Since antiquity , local herbalists have prescribe the abundant , edible Milk River thistle ( Silybum marianum ) for many complaint . forward-looking Kurdish pharmacology research expatiate on traditional program , identifying its cum as an effective treatment for liver disease . Photo by : Anna Laurent . regard THE COMPLETE GALLERY
It ’s an promiscuous metaphor to employ , but the regrowth of the Fertile Crescent is taking root .
A flora shop owner shows a rose in the nursery . His shop grow out of the detritus of a destroyed building . He incline the plants with his son . Before open up the shop he was a school teacher ; he have it off plants and hop that selling them would be profitable enough to allow for for his family . Photo by : Anna Laurent . see THE COMPLETE GALLERY
This clause appeared in the July / August 2012 issue asIn Bloom Again .
