Over lack of rainfall and diesel allocation delay| Looming disaster threatens farmers in SDF-held areas
Many farmers in SDF-controlled areas in north-eastern Syria are concerned greatly about expected damage to this season’s harvest, like in last year, because of the lack of rain and the suspension of assistance and oil allocations provided by the Autonomous Administration to the agricultural projects needed for irrigation.
Farmers in SDF-held areas depend on underground water for irrigating their fields when the rain is so late, while underground water is extracted by engines run by diesel or solar panels.
Moreover, farmers complain of not being able to obtain good and enough seeds from the Agricultural Committee which is also reluctant to provide the farmers’ allocations of diesel, although north-east Syria region is rich with fuel. However, large quantities of fuel are smuggled to areas under the control of pro-Turkey factions.
The Agricultural Committee of the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) had announced that it would provide diesel for the farmers at subsidized prices, 75 SYL per litre, with three to five litres of diesel for every dunum. However, the delay in distributing these allocations has forced many farmers to buy diesel from the black market for more than 500 Syrian liras in order to plough and cultivate their agricultural land.
Moreover, the farmers suffer from many other problems, including the lack of manpower, high costs of cultivation, transportation, spraying insecticide and harvesting. Consequently, production of winter crops, including wheat, barley, some aromatic crops and legumes, in the Syrian Jazeera has been declined in the past three years.
Last year, SDF-held areas suffered from the shortage of wheat and flour due to the damage inflected last season’s harvest, so the “Autonomous Administration” reduced flour allocations provided to bread bakeries, spurring some residents in Deir Ezzor to protest, demanding adequate amount of flour.
In the same context, families in areas under the control of SDF have not received their diesel allocations. However, officials in the “Autonomous Administration” claim that priority of distributing the fuel allocations is given to farmers who complain of not obtaining thiers.