UMM HAJRAH, Syria — Moussa Fatimi’s wheat field was once part of a thriving
Syrian breadbasket. Now, he cannot even grow enough to feed his family, and the land has been turned over to animals.
اضافة اعلان
Fatimi’s crop has withered from a climate crisis,
adding to fears of supply shortages sparked by the war in
Ukraine as Syria
grapples with record-high rates of food insecurity.
“For the second year in a row, we face drought,”
Fatimi, 85, told AFP at his parched plot.
“We haven’t even harvested enough this year to
secure our own supply of bread. Our losses are in the millions,” he said.
Syria is among the countries most vulnerable and
poorly prepared for climate change, which is forecast to worsen, posing a
further threat to the wheat harvests that are an essential income source for a
war-battered population.
The trend is most
evident in
Syria’s once-fertile northeast where wheat fields are drying to a crisp
because of severe drought and low rainfall, challenges also faced by Iraq and
other neighboring countries.
In Umm Hajrah, a village northeast of Hasakeh city,
Fatimi meandered through a wheat field dotted with sheep munching on the crops.
“It’s just straw. There’s no seeds,” he said after
pulling up a stunted stalk.
Trucks used to queue to ferry bags of Fatimi’s wheat
to granaries, but now he largely relies on income from other farmers who use
his field to graze their animals.
“I feel sorry when I see the sheep eating from the
field,” he said.
Syria’s wheat
production averaged 4.1 million tonnes in years prior to its war, which erupted
in 2011 after the repression of anti-government protests. Years of subsequent
fighting have left around half a million people dead and displaced millions.
Before the war, Syria’s wheat production was enough
to meet local demand. Harvests then plunged to record lows, leading to
increased dependence on imports especially from regime-ally
Russia.
Those shipments have continued since Russia’s
February invasion of Ukraine but the war in
Kyiv has sparked fears of a supply
crisis as wheat fields shrivel.
Hotter and hotter
Northeast Syria is about
0.8°C hotter today than it was 100 years ago with a decreased mean rainfall of
about 18mm per month over the same period, according to a report released in
April by iMMAP, a data-focused non-profit organization based in Washington.
By 2050, temperatures are expected to be at least
2°C higher while precipitation falls by 11 percent, iMMAP said.
The
UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization said that
the 210,000 tonnes of wheat grain produced in Hasakeh province during the
2020–2021 winter cropping season were only 26 percent of the previous year.
The low harvest
came with an estimated 60 percent of Syria’s population food-insecure,
according to the UN, and prompted Salman Mohammed Barko to turn his wheat plot
into a grazing ground as Fatimi did.
But the money he makes doesn’t even cover what he
paid to plant the area.
“Climate change has affected us as farmers, with
water scarcity, poor production, less rainfall and weather changes” posing a
great challenge, said Barko, 55.
Local authorities are trying to support farmers,
despite a lack of resources to confront an agricultural crisis compounded by
inflation and shortages of fuel and water.
The semi-autonomous
Kurdish administration helped
irrigate 300,000 hectares of land and offered farmers subsidized seeds and fuel
in response to this year’s drought, agriculture official Laila Mohammed said.
“Climate conditions have affected the production and
quality” of wheat crops, she said, explaining that a decline in output is also
due to an exodus of farmers during Syria’s war.
Adding to water shortages, Turkish-backed groups on
the border with Turkey have been building dams on the Khabour river that serves
as a lifeline for communities downstream in Kurdish-dominated areas, according
to Dutch peace-building organization PAX.
For Syrian farmer Musa Mohammed, the Kurdish
administration isn’t doing enough to help.
It buys 1kg of wheat from farmers for 2,200 Syrian
pounds (about 56 cents), which according to him is insufficient.
“This price doesn’t compensate us for our expenses.
It should have been set at 3,000 at least,” said Mohammed, who because of low rainfall
— and soaring fuel costs — has had to pay more than usual for irrigation.
The 55-year-old planted 10 hectares of wheat this
season.
“Farmers are completely dependent on seasonal
harvests, but the season is weak this year due to weather conditions, lack of
rain, high prices and climate change,” Mohammed said.
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