Agriculture has long been a pillar of Syria's economy, due to the country's location and territorial diversity. The country's products are also diverse and include grapes, cherries and citrus fruits. Yet, after five years of civil war, Syria's agricultural sector is threatened with complete collapse. This led the Global Seed Vault to open its doors because officials fear some of Syria's agricultural products could become extinct.
During the past 15 years, agriculture research centers in Syria opened in new provinces: the Agricultural Research Center in Hama for seed development; the General Commission for Scientific Agricultural Research, which is affiliated with the Syrian government and is operational in various provinces; and the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) in southern Aleppo province.
However, after the armed conflict set in, agriculture centers, like other service facilities, were not spared. Work at ICARDA ended in November 2011 after the Syrian army began using it as a site for artillery and rocket launchers to strike opposition-held areas around Homs, Khalif al-Ouweid, a former engineer at the center said. When the opposition took over the center in mid-2012, it refused to allow operations to resume, knowing the center would be targeted.
The chaos of war naturally affected both farms and farmers, the economy and the populace. Diseases such as wheat rust also hurt production and diminished cultivated areas, Ouweid said.
The hardships of the siege forced Syrians to find new means of maintaining crop production.
In Rif Dimashq, which has been subject to the siege for the past three years, residents survived by growing crops on rooftops. "Civilians in Rif Dimashq were able to break the siege and get legumes and other essential products by buying seeds from other areas despite the high prices. They then planted the seeds in containers on the rooftops of buildings, and it was only a few months before the population began reaping what they planted," media activist Anas al-Khawli told Al-Monitor.
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