
Shopping in the southern city of Basra, Leila only buys ''the queen of dates'' - those produced in the surrounding province.
Her husband Mehdi, 68, said the couple have the sweet fruit ''every lunchtime, and also for snacks between meals.''
The pair devours a kilo [two pounds] over two or three days, at a cost of 5,000 dinars, or just over $4 [3.40 euros].
But high unemployment and price hike means not all families can afford such luxury.
For trader Salem Hussein, who has been selling dates for 40 years, the decline set in long ago -before the drought and even the country's series of deadly conflicts.
The 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war decimated the groves of date palms on Iraqi soil, he said, dressed in a sky blue robe with a skullcap.
The majority of trees lining the Shait-al-Arab waterway, marking the border between the two countries, were incinerated by shells and rockets.
Hussein once dreamt of expanding palm groves and introducing even more varieties than the 450 already boasted by Iraq, which used to be known as the land of ''30 million palm trees.''
The country's dates were long exported ''to the United States, Japan and India,'' recalled the 66-year old.
''We thought of developing and doubling the number of palms, but the figure only falls,''
Official estimates out the decline at 50 percent of the pre-1980 numbers.
''We hoped for a better future -and it got even worse,'' Hussein lamented.
Iraqi agriculture has been especially hard hit by drought this year., resulting in an official ban on the growing of rice and cereals which require a lot of water and the deaths of thousands of animals.
The operational research post on Iraq, History and sufferings continues.[Agencies]
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