Sewage Farming in Azerbaijan

Farmer Karim Gurbanov is unapologetic about using raw sewage on his vegetable crop, in the absence of clean irrigation water.

“I don’t want to poison people, but I need to feed my family, so I have to irrigate my land with wastewater,” he said. “I am waiting for them to repair the filters so I can start irrigating my vegetables with clean water.”

Gurbanov lives in the Samukh district of northwest Azerbaijan, where many other farmers use water drawn from untreated waste.

“Most of the artesian wells aren’t working. We don’t have a choice – if we don’t use this [waste] water we won’t have any crops,” he said. “Even to use this filthy water, we have to pay bribes to get the sanitary inspectors to ignore it.”

In Soviet times, farmers in Samukh drew water from artesian wells, but these fell into disrepair after Azerbaijan became independent 1991. Then they turned to water from a treatment plant that processes sewage from Ganja, Azerbaijan’s second city. But the filtration plant broke down ten years ago, and the water used on local farms has been untreated ever since.

Shoppers in western Azerbaijan have learned to ask market traders where their vegetables were grown, so they can avoid produce from Samukh.

Ilkin Hasanov, chief doctor in the district hygiene and epidemiology department, says his staff have tried in vain to block the flow of sewage water.

“We’ve gone to the local authorities many times, and we have fixed the pipes to stop dirty water flowing to the vegetable patches, but it’s been in vain,” he said. “The villagers break them [sewage pipes] again and allow the foul water to flow out everywhere.”

Health experts warn that untreated waste can be extremely hazardous if it gets into the food cycle, not least when the sewage comes from a big city.

“The sewage comes from several factories and hospitals,” agricultural scientist Vugar Bashirov said. “If we don’t treat the wastewater from Ganja, it is very dangerous to use it to water plants. The crops could be harmful because they will accumulate microbes and bacteria from the sewage.”

Karim Aliyev, an infectious diseases specialist at Ganja’s main hospital, confirmed that risks existed.

“Infectious diseases carried in polluted water can be transferred to vegetables. For example, typhoid bacteria can live on plants for two or three months, and diphtheria bacteria for 15 to 20 days,” he explained. “Even if you clean vegetables carefully, it’s hard to neutralise microbes completely. That creates conditions in which infectious diseases can spread.”

Aliyev noted that hepatitis was increasingly rapidly in Ganja. One study conducted in February 2012 indicated that one in 20 city residents was infected with hepatitis B or C.

Shakir Mammadov, deputy head of Samukh district government and the official responsible for agriculture, said several solutions were being explored.

“Since a new [district] administration head was appointed, the campaign against using sewage water for irrigation has been stepped up,” he said. “Artesian wells are being repaired so that people can draw clean water. There are plans to bring in irrigation water via new canals, as well. But if the sewage from Ganja was treated, then the problem would of course be solved.”

Agil Hajiyev, who is overseeing a project to repair the sewage treatment system, told IWPR that the work would take another two years.

Vusal Mammadov is a reporter who writes for the www.civil-forum.az website.