Syria: Drought Threatens Wheat Crop, Anticipating Worst Food Season in Forty Years

Syria has been hit by the worst drought in nearly four decades, leading to cracked lands and damaged crops, with farmers clinging to every drop of water as if it were a rare treasure in a desert that expands day by day. With little rainfall, dwindling groundwater, and the drying up of major rivers and lakes, drought is no longer just a temporary phenomenon, but a permanent climatic reality casting its shadow on what remains of the war-weakened agricultural sector.

“We only saw rain once or twice… We have almost lost the wheat,” thus Nouras Barakeh, a farmer from Arbin, summarizes the scale of the disaster. Irrigation costs have become exorbitant, rain-fed agriculture is disappearing from vast areas, while the productivity of irrigated lands is declining due to the depletion of springs, the drying up of the Orontes River and Lake Zarzar, and the deterioration of over-exploited wells.

The Syrian Ministry of Agriculture estimates losses in the wheat crop at about 40% this season, reducing production to 1.2 million tons, while the annual need is close to 4 million tons. It was not only the quantity; the extreme heat and rapid flowering led to the production of weak grains, and cotton cultivation decreased due to the lack of irrigation water and the high cost of operating pumps.

The ministry believes that climate change and the over-exploitation of groundwater are the main reasons for the exacerbation of this crisis. However, the ministry points to cooperation with the “FAO” to rehabilitate surface irrigation networks, launch projects to support farmers, work on developing drought-resistant agricultural strains, in addition to applying conservation agriculture methods and training programs to enhance water use efficiency.

The crisis has gone beyond the repercussions of agricultural seasons. According to the United Nations, 16 million people face an increasing threat of food insecurity, while 2.5 million hectares of wheat land have been damaged, and 95% of rain-fed wheat has been almost completely damaged. Irrigated wheat production is expected to decrease by between 30% and 40%, which will lead to a gap of up to 2.7 million tons in a country already suffering from resource scarcity and high prices.

In a country that was known as the “breadbasket of the region,” drought today has become a direct enemy of food and the economy, sounding the alarm in the long term, which necessitates the adoption of new agricultural options and more effective water management before the gap widens to a level that is difficult to overcome.