After years of war, drought and economic crisis, Omar Abdel-Fattah was forced to rent out his farmland in northeastern Syria, preferring a more stable job to provide for his family.
“It breaks my heart to see someone else working my land,” said Abdel-Fattah, 50, who has grown wheat, cotton and vegetables in Jaabar al-Saghir, Syria’s Raqa province, for three decades.
He said he had to give up farming to make ends meet and provide education for his eight children because he “can no longer keep up with the costs of farming”, including irrigation.
Agriculture was once a mainstay of northeastern Syria’s economy.
The region was the country’s breadbasket before 2011, when the government cracked down on peaceful protests, sparking a conflict that has killed more than 500,000 people and displaced millions.
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Now the effects of climate change — particularly warming and drought — along with spiraling costs are taking a heavy toll on agricultural production and the families who depend on it for survival.
Abdel-Fattah found work at a water pumping station run by the region’s semi-autonomous Kurdish administration.
He pays about $70 a month, so he also has a small shop on the side that sells hardware and other items to make ends meet.
Some of his relatives have also rented out their land, while others have left Syria because of the dire economic situation there, Abdel-Fattah said.
He urged the Kurdish administration and international agricultural organizations to provide “support and loans” to farmers in the region.
“This is the only solution to save agriculture, help farmers and encourage them to return to their fields again,” he said.
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Cultivating a “loss”
In vast swaths of Raqqa province, empty farmland sits next to cultivated fields where farmers and laborers harvest crops, including potatoes and corn.
Syria has endured more than 12 years of civil war, and Raqqa was the center of Islamic State’s brutal “caliphate” in Syria until they were ousted from the city in 2017.
In the town of Qahtaniyah, Jassem al-Rashed, 55, said farming had been his only income for 30 years, but now it had become a “loss”.
His children helped him on the land at first, but now he tends the crops himself.
“Two of my children work in the animal trade and another two left for Europe, while another three joined the traffic police and security forces,” he said.
“Agriculture is no longer suitable for them, after the last years of drought,” he added.
In November, the World Weather Attribution group said human-caused climate change has increased temperatures, making drought about 25 times more likely in Syria and neighboring Iraq.
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Suhair Zakkout is the representative of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Damascus.
He has previously told AFP that “Syria’s agricultural production has fallen by around 50 percent in the last 10 years” due to war and climate change.
In the far northeast corner of the country, former farmer Faruk Mohammed, 40, looked out over his uncultivated land in Tal Hamis in Hasakeh province.
Now a teacher employed by the Kurdish administration, he said he switched jobs “to earn a living — nothing more, nothing less.”
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He also hoped that local authorities would help farmers and work to “save what’s left of the farmland.”
“Years of drought have hurt farmers, as well as rising fuel prices,” he said.
More than a decade of war has devastated Syria’s economy, and long daily blackouts mean people must rely on generators for electricity amid regular fuel shortages.
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Farmers told AFP they struggled to pay for seeds and fertiliser, while some turned to solar panels to help power water pumps.
Leila Saruhan, an official in the Kurdish administration, acknowledged that factors such as drought and rising costs had led to a decline in agriculture.
“Climate change is affecting rainfall, while desertification is expanding in northeastern Syria,” he told AFP, adding: “These are dangerous factors for agriculture.”
Back in Raqqa province, farmer Adnan Ibrahim said his children had left farming behind and joined the Kurdish security services “to earn a steady salary”.
He pointed to farm equipment sitting idle near the house and bemoaned the impact of climate change as well as rising prices.
But the 56-year-old also said the ever-present specter of conflict influenced his children’s decision.
“We are afraid to cultivate our land,” he said.
“War could break out at any moment and warplanes could bomb our lands. So it’s better to have a steady job.”
Source: AFP