Significant Increase in Cotton Cultivated Areas in Syria after liberation from terrorism

Cotton is considered one of the strategic agricultural crops in Syria as more than 20% of citizens work in cultivating cotton which provides the raw material for textiles and  oils  industries and Syria is distinguished by its high quality cotton products.

The Syrian cotton is widely  famous at the local and international markets as Syria has been able to rank second on the international level with regard to production and the cultivated areas..

Cotton agriculture  declined during the terrorist war launched against the country which dragged on for nine years and the production and cultivated areas decreased , while nowadays work is underway to restore the excellency of this agricultural product.

 Cotton cultivation areas  in  a number of Syrian  governorates is improving after its retreat  in previous years due to the terrorist organizations’ attacks which caused damage to the cotton  crop as  large areas of lands stopped  production..

More than 34 thousand hectares have been cultivated so far in Syria and production may reach 291 thousand tons of  cotton on condition that the entire agricultural plan is fully implemented ,  according to engineer Waddah Al-Qadi, Head of  Aleppo  Cotton Directorate  .

He indicated  to SANA correspondent  that the cultivated areas of cotton in Aleppo amounted to 1150 hectares out of  11 thousand hectares  where the reasons for the difference in crops are due to the exit of large areas of land from service due to the presence of terrorist organizations in them and the high price of seeds and production requirements .

Al-Qadi  stressed  the importance of encouraging and supporting farmers to cultivate this strategic crop by setting and raising the price of cotton and providing the necessary funding from  the agricultural bank of  the farmers   in addition to re-launching  modern irrigation project  where  37 percent of the  cultivated areas are  still being irrigated by  wells.

He underscored   that the  efforts  exerted by  technicians at the  agricultural scientific research centers  ,  farmers and government  will restore this crop  to its position at   regional and global levels, as Syria has remained in the  second rank  in the world in production of cotton for several years.

Al-Qadi   called  for supporting  farmers, who are the main pillar of the production of this crop in addition to the continuation of work to increase production, which was greatly affected by terrorists who  destroyed  factories of ginning , spinning and  weaving in addition to  irrigation channels.

For their part , a number of farmers of  the cotton cultivation fields in Al-Safira area southeast of Aleppo  told SANA that the cultivated areas in cotton amounted to about 600 hectares. They  called for ensuring requirements  of production especially fertilizers.

Rawaa Ghanam