Agricultural production is threatened with a permanent halt
Conflict and climate change threaten the “bread basket” in Syria
Bakers are adding corn to bread for lack of resources.
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Water scarcity has turned fertile land into wasteland.
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Livestock owners have nothing to feed their animals with.
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Drought and 10 years of war led to the deterioration of agricultural production and the exacerbation of poverty in an area formerly known as the “bread basket” in Syria.
In a government bakery in al-Hasakah, a faded painting of former president Hafez al-Assad hangs on a wall above old machinery and the tangled metal chains of an assembly line.
The painting dates back to long before the war, when this area in northeastern Syria was still under government control.
Outside, a long line of families and disabled men waits for bags of subsidized bread, which sells for about a quarter of the market price.
What's new in this bakery is the color of the flour thrown into giant mixing bowls, which is now a pale yellow instead of the traditional white.
The bakery official said that this is a new experiment that began three or four months ago. To avoid a shortage of bread, the workers had to mix flour with corn.
In a region torn apart by the Islamic State and armed conflict, prolonged drought and the drying up of rivers have made stability even more fragile.
There, the often abstract idea of climate change can be seen in the city's daily bread.
And the new recipe is totally unwelcome.
“We feed corn to the chickens,” said Khader Shaaban, 48, a grain farmer near the town of Shaddadi, where bare soil has replaced most of the wheat fields due to lack of water.
The prolonged drought in the region has been linked to climate change around the world.
But in northeastern Syria, the country's historical breadbasket, the effects of this change have been compounded by more than a decade of war, a devastated economy and infrastructure, and increased poverty, leaving vulnerable communities even more at risk of destabilization.
lower quality
Across the country, last summer the United Nations World Food Program reported that about half of the population did not have enough to eat, a number expected to rise this year.
Farmers have left many fields of fertile land uncultivated because they are unable to buy seeds or fertilizer, or diesel to run water pumps, to make up for the reduced rainfall in previous years.
Farmers, government officials and aid organizations say the wheat they grow is of lower quality, and is selling at a much lower price than it was two years ago.
This semi-autonomous region, badly in need of cash and stable relations with Damascus, still sells much of its wheat to the Syrian government, leaving little for its residents.
Farmers who cannot feed and water their animals sell them at a discount.
“The problem of climate change is combined with other problems, so it is not about one thing,” said Matt Hall, a strategic analyst at Save the Children in the Middle East and Eastern Europe. “There is war, there are sanctions and a devastated economy;
The region cannot bear the recession by importing wheat, because it no longer has the money.”
For thousands of years, the Euphrates and its largest tributary, the Khabur River, which runs through the Hasaka Governorate, fed some of the world's oldest agricultural settlements.
But these rivers are drying up.
The US space agency (NASA), which studies climate change, says the drought, which began in 1998, is the worst experienced in some parts of the Middle East in 900 years.
In the north-east of the country, the drought has been severe, especially during the past two years.
But below-average rainfall is only part of the problem.
Turkey controls water supplies in parts of northern Syria through proxy fighters, and is accused of reducing the flow into the region inhabited by the Kurds, whom it sees as an enemy.
obvious effects
Since Turkey seized the Allouk water pumping station, the main water source for Hasaka governorate, in 2019, aid agencies say forces under their command have repeatedly shut off the pumps, putting nearly a million people at risk.
Turkey denied the accusation, blaming the blackout on technical problems and a lack of electricity from a dam outside its control.
Whatever the reason, UNICEF says the water supply has been disrupted at least 24 times since late 2019. The effects of the drought are visible in the small town of Shaddadi, 50 miles south of Hasaka.
The Khabur River, which flowed through the city and was so vital, in ancient times, that it was referred to in the Bible, turned into pools of murky water.
The mayor of al-Shaddadi town, Muhammad Salih, said that 70 percent of farmers in the area have left their fields this year, because it will cost more to grow crops than they will get from selling them.
The lower level of the Khabur River, which farmers rely on to irrigate their fields, means they have to run their diesel pumps for longer to get the same amount of water.
Diesel fuel prices have risen, along with the prices of other necessities, due to the economic blockade of the region by its neighbors, Turkey and the part controlled by the Syrian government, and US economic sanctions, which also affect this region.
Saleh also blamed Turkey for reducing the water supply at the Allouk station, explaining, "They open water for us once, and cut it off for 10 days."
unknown future
In areas visited by UN organizations, there was no vegetation growth in the spring and summer of 2021, which means that hundreds of thousands of sheep, cows, goats and camels lack pasture for food, and will not be able to access water sources.
Pastoral communities in Syria are increasingly struggling with the impact of climate change, with low livestock prices and volatile weather conditions affecting livestock prices, pushing them to the brink of poverty.
As one of the shepherds near Ras al-Ain said: “If the rain does not fall, there is no future.”
This shepherd lost 150 of his 400 sheep in 2021 and was forced to flee with his family from a former grazing land recently, after the bombing of the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army.
He now spends most of his money on livestock feed to keep his sheep alive, as local communities do not allow him to use their lands to graze his sheep.
The lack of rain and water in rivers also leads to a deterioration in the public health and the environment.
Moreover, dams were built in the Khabour River, in the spring of 2021, and the flow of water to Hasaka from the Allouk water station faced dozens of deliberate interruptions, resulting in more than 60,000 people not being able to access water for longer periods.
Meanwhile, the oil industry is polluting local streams and rivers by dumping polluted sewage, further affecting surface and groundwater sources.
Despite the political will to change the situation, the local authorities lack the appropriate equipment and financial resources to repair the poorly maintained oil infrastructure.
• The US space agency "NASA", which studies climate change, says that the drought that began in 1998 is the worst that some parts of the Middle East have experienced in 900 years.
• 70% of the farmers in the fertile Shaddadi area have left their fields this year.
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