Prime Minister: Developing a Working Plan to enhance Agricultural Reality

Damascus, (ST) – The government started a comprehensive plan to re-invest the land which was re-controlled by the Syrian Arab Army in various governorates. The meeting was held here on Sunday by the Ministry of Agriculture and Agrarian Reform, headed by the Prime Minister, Eng. Emad Khamis.

During the meeting, the executive mechanisms were set for re-planting these lands and coordinating with the concerned local authorities to facilitate the return of farmers and communicate directly with them to address the difficulties they face.

The participants stressed the need to ensure all the requirements of cultivating the liberated lands in all governorates and to adopt the sensory inspection to grant agricultural organization to farmers who could not secure the documents of ownership to facilitate their access to production inputs and increase support to meet the requirements of the reconstruction phase, primarily contributing to the development of the livestock sector and the providing fertilizers, fodders  veterinary medicines and support for income-generating projects for rural families to improve their livelihoods and provide benefits to investors to establish vital agricultural projects to support the national economy.

The participants also discussed the final support strategies for the product and the granting of productive grants and inputs of plant and animal production in all governorates and the investment plan for the development of productive units to ensure their completion according to the specific time and material schedule.

In order to optimize investment for each square meter of agriculture, Engineer Khamis directed agricultural managers in all governorates in coordination with the governors to develop a plan to re-invest the liberated areas and provide strategic and qualitative support to farmers to re-invest their lands and intensive work to rehabilitate liberated areas.

Eng. Khamis stressed the importance of developing a joint work vision between ministries and concerned institutions to accurately describe the destruction of the agricultural sector and to take the necessary measures to overcome all the obstacles caused by the terrorist war, especially that the agriculture sector constitutes the backbone of the Syrian economy and contributed to strengthening the steadfastness of the Syrian people.

For his part, Minister of Local Administration and Environment Eng. Hussein Makhlouf stressed that the priority of the Ministry’s work is to enable the people to invest their agricultural lands in the areas which the Syrian Arab Army has restored.

Minister Makhlouf pointed out that the Governors are working under the directives of the government to give priority to the distribution of fuel to workers in the agricultural sector, pointing out that the ministry is ready to intervene permanently to meet all the new requirements of securing the agricultural and productive process.

The Minister pointed to the cooperation between the Ministry of Local Administration and the Ministry of Agriculture and Agrarian Reform in the process of marketing agricultural production, ensuring agricultural roads and the requirements of industrial and handicraft areas.

Minister of Agriculture and Agrarian Reform Ahmed Al-Qadri confirmed the importance of the meeting to discuss topics of interest to the agricultural sector which receives great attention and support from the government, pointing out the efforts of the Ministry to ensure the cultivation of every inch of land that the Syrian Arab Army controlled and the return of the people to their areas of origin with emphasis on important strategic crops such as wheat and increasing domestic agriculture because of its importance in the development process.

Mr. Al-Qadri pointed to the support of livestock, especially herds of cattle, sheep and goats, for their great importance in providing the needs of the local market for animal products. “We are moving on a large government project by importing high-caliber cattle to restore the herd of cattle during the coming period.

Sh. Kh.