Agriculture Directorate in Homs

Agriculture is one of the Syrian economic pillars.  Ministry of Agriculture and Agrarian Reform oversees all agricultural activities in Syria including crops and fruit trees, as well as supervising livestock all over the country. Therefore the Ministry has distributed tasks on its directorates in the country to implement the ministry’s assigned work plans.

Homs Cultivation Directorate, is one of those directorates, which have undertaken the task of upgrading and developing the agricultural reality in the country in general and in the governorate in particular. The directorate, thanks to its well-trained staff in all specialists managed to develop and improve the agricultural situation, both the agricultural and livestock sectors, throughout the province.

In a meeting with Mr. Mohamed Nazeeh al- Refa’i, director of Homs Cultivation Directorate, he told us about the present reality of agriculture and livestock under the current conditions and the factors affecting the implementation of the directorate’s set plans.

Al-Refa’i said :” In an implementation of the a forestation plan set by the Ministry of Agriculture and Agrarian Reform, the basic work of Homs Directorate of cultivation has been focused and centered, since the beginning of this year, on carrying out the fruitful and forest forestation plans in the territory of state property and distributing forest and fruit seedlings to farmers. The goal of this plan is to reduce the forest areas affected by the illegal logging or due to the fire, which affected large tracts of forest area in various parts of the province and caused either due to natural factors such as the high temperatures or by terrorist operations. The forest affected area has reached 1914.2 hectares.  While the affected area planted with fruit trees reached more than 1020.2 hectares”.

“In an attempt to put an end or at least to reduce as much as possible from the disaster that threaten agricultural wealth whether they are natural or intentional, our department has developed an emergency plan to intervene in case of flare-up fires in various parts of the province. Several fire fighter sites supplied with water tanks and well- trained teams have been established throughout the governorate”, Mr. Al-Refa’i added.

With respect to the most important agricultural crops and the rate of implementing the directorate’s set plans, Mr. Refa’i said that olive,grape, apples and almond are the most important agricultural crops in the governorate.

Through the investment plan for the year 2014 – 2015: The olive cultivated area reached 95 639 hectares. The grape cultivated area amounted to 19 168 hectares. While the area cultivated with apples have reached 10921 hectares. As almonds have occupied an area of 59476 hectares.”

“Regarding wheat the strategic crop in Homs, we can say that the area planted with wheat in the 2014-2015 plan year reached 37 682 hectares. The other important crop,barley was planted on 49 045 hectares in the same year plan.

The agricultural situation in Homs until 10|8|2015 indicates that the harvested area of wheat has reached 23 872 hectares and the marketed quantities amounted to 12440 tones. The harvested area of barley amounted to 14 303 hectares and the marketed quantities scored 341 tons.”

Concerning the most important sections of the Directorate and the work of each section, Mr. Tawfiq Hassan al-Khader, Deputy Director General, said: “The Directorate includes five basic sections which are: -The Economic Affairs Section. It includes 3 departments, for statistics, marketing and economics.

-The Natural Resources Section.  It also includes three departments involving Forestry, State Property and land and water. The Forestry department is now working to carry out three investment projects including forest protection, developing forests and forestry development.

 The implementation of the investment plan of these projects have reached 40% up to 7. 7.2015.

Plant wealth section. –

– Livestock Section which includes three departments for Plant Production, Animal Health and Veterinary medicine.

-Human Resources section that cares for agricultural guidance. There are approximately 77 agricultural guidance units spread throughout various parts of the governorate, in addition to 8 supportive units. These units work as mini agricultural directorate in each region. There is also the rural women’s department. Where this section cares for women’s affairs and providing them loans and grants in order to help them improve lives of their families’ level. There are grants from the Food and Agriculture Organization FAO to needy families and the families of the martyrs and wounded. Some 62 of invalids and war-wounded and 25 families who have lost their breadwinners have also benefited from the other grants offered by the Ministry of Agriculture and Agrarian Reform and the Syrian Commission for Families. The Directorate has also employed, according to annual contracts, 215 persons from the martyrs families.

Amal Farhat – Homs,The Syria Times Correspondent