Palm Sunday

 With the assistance of Taylor Noel Freeman:

Iran Wire, Palm Trees Burn as Iran's Oil Province Runs Dry

The flames burned 20,000 date palms in a single day, their decades-old trunks crackling under the July sun as local farmers watched their families' livelihoods turn to ash. There was no water to fight the fire.

"God is witness, if these palms are destroyed, we have no food to eat," a farmer from Abadan said in a video that circulated online after the July 18 blaze. "It's shameful to say this."

The destruction of the Mani Vahi and Kut Shanuf palm groves in southern Abadan is more than an agricultural disaster. It is the latest casualty in Iran's escalating water crisis, where ancient farming traditions are collapsing under the weight of industrial agriculture and decades of environmental mismanagement.

In the oil-rich province of Khuzestan, home to Iran's largest rivers and most productive farmland, a bitter competition for water has emerged between traditional date farmers and powerful sugarcane companies backed by state banks. The palm groves are losing.

Linked at The Pirate's Cove in the weekly Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup and links.  The Wombat has Rule 5 Sunday: Doughnut Dolly up on time and under budget.