![]() Historically, farmers in Syria and around the world grew landraces: local crop varieties selected and bred by farmers themselves. In the 1960s, the Baath party rose to power in Syria with a political obsession: improving agricultural yields to ensure self-sufficiency, the prerequisite for a strong and sovereign state. “If rain doesn’t come this year, we will not be able to plant.” Amal, a local farmer, stands near the spring-fed washhouse of Mashoq village on the outskirts of Qamishli, (Lyse Mauvais) World-renowned institutions Undoubtedly, rising temperatures and decreasing precipitation has hugely affected rainfed crops, decreased access to water for irrigation and compounded other challenges.Ī closer look into Syrian agriculture shows that the seeds of its current decline were sown decades before the first impacts of climate change were felt-a decline that has more to do with shortsighted decisions and human-induced crises than with a few years of drought. In Iraq and Syria, political leaders eagerly point to plummeting rainfall as the main, inescapable source of farmers’ woes. Precipitation has also decreased, particularly in the past two years, amid a historic drought.īut climate change has also become a convenient scapegoat. The impact of climate change is now perceptible in Syria’s northeast, which is now about 0.8 degrees Celsius hotter than it was a century ago. How did a nation once self-sufficient in cereals lose the means to produce them, leaving farmers empty-handed to face a changing climate and worsening droughts? And how did a once bountiful and diverse trove of genetic material shrivel to a few exhausted varieties? Part I: Losing ground The story of Syria’s seeds is interwoven with that of its people and institutions. At the same time, the climate is changing, and varieties developed decades ago can no longer meet the needs of farmers, who struggle to adapt to rapid changes in weather patterns and rainfall. Institutions in charge of growing and distributing them lack the expertise and means to carry out their mission. But war scattered these resources, and the seeds that were rescued nearly 10 years ago and repeatedly reproduced ever since are now reaching exhaustion. Syria was once home to world-renowned agricultural research centers and one of the world’s largest seed banks, hosting thousands of native cereals and wild plants. Across Syria, farmers report dwindling yields, which they attribute to a lack of rain, fertilizers and irrigation capacity-but also to the declining quality of seeds. In 2021, the harvest plummeted to just above one million tons, compared to 2.8 million tons in 2020 and more than 4 million tons a year before the war. In a strange twist of the threads of history, Syria-home to ancient varieties of wild wheat and barley, the cradle where humans first discovered the extraordinary potential of cereals and learned to harvest, plant and nurture grain-is struggling to grow its own wheat. Without the resources collected then, we would not have been able to distribute seeds, plant them and feed people for so long.”īut, as Muhammad knows all too well, these efforts are reaching their limits. “But really, if not for what we managed to do in those days, the agricultural crisis we are in now would be much worse. “Keep in mind this was wartime-nobody was preoccupied with the issue of seeds,” Muhammad said. Muhammad, who requested a pseudonym due to security concerns, was among its founders. ![]() Their efforts would give birth to the Agricultural Community Development Company (KPJ), established in the early years of the war to fill the void left by regime institutions. “Keep in mind this was wartime-nobody was preoccupied with the issue of seeds.”įor days on end, he and other agricultural engineers crisscrossed northeastern Syria to salvage wheat seeds, visiting agricultural research centers, seed multiplication organizations, and contracted seed breeders. “It was a very important matter, a matter of food security and food sovereignty.” “It was the very beginning of a new era, and we were trying to preserve the resources we had at hand,” Muhammad said, his expressive face broken by a broad smile. While all eyes turned to the raging war between the Syrian state and opposition groups, as well as emerging jihadist influence in the Syrian desert, Muhammad was fighting on another front. The Syrian regime was pulling out, abandoning its offices and institutions to a nascent coalition of armed groups and independent political parties-led by Kurds, Syriacs and Arabs from the area-that would eventually morph into the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES), the de facto government still ruling the region. AL-HASAKAH - In a small coffee shop in downtown Hasakah city, northeastern Syria, Mahmoud Muhammad’s eyes flicker with energy as he recounts the early days of 2013. ![]()
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