Document Type : Review Article

Authors

• Neven Azad Ezaddin ¹
• Rabar Fatah Salih ²

¹ Salahaddin university- college of Agricultural Engineering Sciences-department of Field Crops and Medicinal Plants

² Field Crops and Medicinal Plants-Salahaddin university-College of Agricultural Engineering Sciences-Iraq-Erbil-Kurdistan region

Abstract

Natural fibers or fibers derived from crop plants, which divided into different types according to their extraction place like seed, bast (stem), leaf fibers and fruit fibers. Fiber crops have many advantages that can be used in textile industries for making cloths, papers, towels, ropes and in other products such as in food, medicines, cosmetic, construction material, animal feed and blended with other by products for composite preparation. As well as, natural fibers are renewable, cheap, environmentally friendly, low weight, low cost, not toxic as compared to synthetic fibers, and produced in a wide scale worldwide. Therefore, the objective of this review is to determine the fiber crops which cultivated in Kurdistan Region and Iraq such as; cotton, flax, date palm, jute and kenaf. Nowadays, can say that cultivation these crops in Iraq are limited by the farmers. It is sowed just on research scope, which is due to absence of industries, environmental changes and may also due to the war in the region. Furthermore, for encouraging farmers for cultivating fiber crops, there should be companies and factories utilizing fiber crops in different scopes. Besides, researchers and scientists should work on developing natural fibers, which are known as ecofriendly fibers, based on the findings of this study.

Keywords

• Natural fiber
• cotton
• kenaf
• flax
• jute
• renewable
• ecofriendly

Main Subjects

• Agriculture