The role of food industries in the Iraqi economy - a comparative study

Abstract

The research aims to clarify the importance of the developmental role of food industries by identifying the capabilities, strengths, weaknesses, and challenges facing the food industries sector and identifying the location of food industries in the Arab and regional countries, highlighting both the experience of Egypt and the experience of Turkey as one of the important countries in the field of food industries from In order to compare the situation of that industry with the conditions of this sector in Iraq, in order to analyze the structure of the food industries and indicate the elements of strength, weakness, obstacles, and challenges facing these industries in Iraq.

The research was divided into five axes dealing with the first axis: the definition of food industries and their economic importance and their relationship to the agricultural sector. The second axis focused on studying the role of food industries in the Arab countries, and the third axis dealt with the experience of food industries in Egypt, and the fourth axis included the experience of food industries in Turkey and focused The fifth axis is on the study of the importance of the food industries in the Iraqi economy, and the study concluded by analyzing the relative contributions of the activities of the food industry in Iraq for the period 2005-2018, that the productive activity of this sector is limited to the flour and bakery industry, which dominated the main contribution in this sector at a rate of 47.63% on average during the period 2005-2018, the beverage industries ranked second with an average contribution of 15.73%, while the third rank was achieved by the other food products industry, which is the group of handicraft, handicraft and household industries with an average contribution of about 10% and these three industries constituted about 75% of the total contribution of the food industry sector , which confirms that the food industries in Iraq are still weak industries in terms of transformational stages It depends on weak technical activities that follow traditional methods of production.

The study recommended the need to work on taking measures to raise the level of productive diversification in the agricultural sector, by encouraging the production of industrial crops, especially those that are used as inputs in the production of the food industry, by adopting an agricultural policy aimed at encouraging the cultivation of these crops in a manner that secures dependence on locally produced raw materials. Emphasizing the necessity of expanding into large production units that achieve economies of scale and respond to the successive technical developments in the field of food industries.