Qamishli- Under a worn plastic cover in the Syrian island region, the farmer Muhammad bends to inspect the seedlings of cucumber and the small eggplant he tries to save from early heat, after losing the entire wheat season.
In this region, farmers are no longer talking about the “season”, but rather “attempts to survive.” Last winter, Muhammad planted more than 90 dunums of wheat and cumin, but it “all gone in vain, without a rainy point.”
The winter season ended before it started, and Mohamed had nothing but summer agriculture using solar energy to operate the water pump, as a last option to reduce costs and survival of bankruptcy.
Muhammad was not the only farmer who faced the same fate.
Agriculture suffocates
The Syrian island – the area between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers – extends over agricultural areas that were known for decades as a “Syrian food basket”, as it produced most wheat and barley in the country.
But since 2019, these lands have lost their green color, and began to turn into pale spaces that are no longer. The features of the agricultural scene changed dramatically.
Climate change and rain declining
According to local reports, wheat production in Hasaka decreased from 805 thousand tons in 2020 to less than 210 thousand tons last season, with a loss exceeding 74% of the production volume.
About 70% of Syrian agricultural lands depend on rain, making it the first victim of climate change.
The crisis was exacerbated by the high costs of fertilizers, the scarcity of seeds, the rise or scarcity of fuel costs, in addition to the deterioration of irrigation networks, and the low level of groundwater.
Wheat withdrawal
In this context, Issa (fifty farms from Al -Hasaka countryside) decided this year to cultivate wheat after losing the entire previous season over an area of 15 dunums.
“I no longer tolerate the loss. I planted only 8 dunums of cotton, and I used solar panels in installments to operate the water pump. Survival here does not depend on an agricultural policy, but on the sun,” Issa told Al -Jazeera Net.
As for Mahmoud – another farmer from the region – he chose to resort to the cultivation of summer vegetables in plastic tunnels, but it is an “anxious adventure”, he says.
“We grow anxiously, and we know that failure is possible, but we have no alternative.”
The farmer complains about the high prices of fertilizers, lack of support, and describes the agricultural situation on the Syrian island as a “losing gamble”.
Danger to food security
Agricultural engineer Mustafa Ali warns that what is happening in the Syrian island exceeds that it is a bad season, and according to his speech to Al -Jazeera Net – a “serious strategic shift in the future of food security for Syria.”
He adds that “the absence of a clear government plan to support farmers in the face of climate changes led to a gradual withdrawal from the cultivation of strategic crops, especially wheat, which was represented for decades as a title of Syrian agricultural sovereignty.
He continues that “more than 90% of the population in the region live below the poverty line, according to international reports, and at the same time their ability to produce food collapses, especially in areas that were leading agriculture in the country.”
“If there is no actual intervention and emergency strategy to support agricultural production, we may find ourselves in front of a national food crisis that starts from the island’s farmers and does not end on the population tables.”
While farmers on the Syrian island continues to resort to summer alternatives in an attempt to reduce losses, the crisis remains deeper than just switching a season or crop.
In the absence of actual support, and with the continued drought and high costs, it appears that agriculture on the Syrian island is at a crossroads .. either is an emergency support, or upcoming famine.
