RAQQA, Syria (North Press) – During the cotton season that was about to end, Qassem Shalash, a farmer in the countryside of Raqqa, northern Syria, avoided risking an area of 50 acres that he used to plant with cotton every ear.
In the town of Kedeiran, 30 km west of Raqqa, the farmer only planted 30 acres, expecting that he would be able to take care of it and provide its requirements, but he faced a lot of problems, the most prominent of which was the lack of irrigation and support provided to farmers of the cotton.
The list goes on if you ask a cotton farmer in Raqqa about the challenges he faced during the cotton seasons that is about to end, such as the high cost of seeds, fertilizers and agricultural pesticides, in addition to insufficient fuel allocations.
Decades ago, the cotton ranked the second most important agricultural crop after wheat in Syria, and it was at the forefront of the crops that provided many job opportunities in the countryside of Raqqa and Jazira region in particular.
This year, the total areas planted with cotton reached 49,000 hectares, according to reports issued by the agricultural committees and authorities in the northeast Syria’s areas.
The celebration of the World Cotton Day by the United Nations is only three years old, as it was first launched in 2019 at the headquarters of the World Trade Organization in Geneva.
A few days ago, it announced that it would ratify the designation of October 7 of each year as World Cotton Day in its perpetual calendar.
The UN statistics indicate that there are 28 million cotton growers around the world, as well as benefiting more than 100 million families in 75 countries on five continents.
Several challenges
Cotton farmers in north and east Syria faced challenges this season, most notably the lack of irrigation water, due to Turkish seizures of Euphrates River water after a poor winter, which led to frequent stops at irrigation stations in Raqqa and Deir ez-Zor.
In addition to the high costs of extracting water from wells in other areas due to the lack of fuel and the high costs of operating and maintaining engines after the collapse of the value of the Syrian pound in recent years.
Shalash and other farmers believe that the high prices of seeds, agricultural pesticides and fertilizers, and their inability to secure them in a timely manner and in sufficient quantity are major factors that led to the decline in cotton cultivation and low production.
Large areas of the crop this year were also damaged due to the spread of the Egyptian cotton leafworm.
He said that 175 kg per acre is the maximum that he expects at the end of the harvest, after he got 500 kg of each acre last year.
“The lack of production is due to the lack of fertilizers and pesticides that were applied during the season’s cycle of nearly six months.”
Shalash stressed that the majority of farmers in Raqqa were not able to secure the requirements of their crops in a way that would give the cotton bush the appropriate conditions to bear good production.
The cotton crops need irrigation approximately once every ten days, which can be increased or decreased according to the temperature and the nature of the soil.
It also needs relatively many workers for weeding and harvesting in particular, in addition to irrigation, fertilization, etc., which provide job opportunities for local residents, but raise costs.
Shalash pointed out that he used to get loans to provide the requirements of his crop, and he used to pay those debts on the date of receiving the cost of his cotton, but he cautiously reduced those debts during the last season with signs of low production.
Pricings and decisions
In August, the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) announced its intention to purchase the entire cotton harvest this season, after it left the matter to traders last year following the disagreement of the Farmers’ Unions to its proposed pricing at the time.
During the same month, it set the price for the cotton with seeds at 1,950 SYP per kilogram (about $0.60), which was more than the price of the Syrian government which priced at 1,500 SYP (about $0.40).
However, two weeks later, the Syria government’s Ministry of Agriculture and Agrarian Reform announced that it had raised the price to 2,500 SYP (about $0.70), so the Autonomous Administration, in turn, raised it to the same amount.
The AANES, which opened a few months ago a factory for oils in Qamishli, is trying to benefit from the cotton crop in the oil and clothing industries in light of the economic challenges it faces, according to a previous statement by the co-chair of the Economic and Agriculture Board Salman Barudo.
On August 13, the Agricultural Community Development Company in AANES opened four centers to receive the cotton crop, namely, Shanina and Kabash centers in Raqqa, Mahlaja center in the city of Hasakah, and another center in Deir ez-Zor.
Last week, Barudo said that the cotton centers have received more than 6,500 tons of the cotton so far.
He said that the turnout of farmers to the cotton centers was at the required level.
Suffering in the government-held areas
As for the government, it did not specify any center to receive cotton in Hasakah, according to the government’s SANA news agency, which said that farmers wishing to market their products can transfer their production to the marketing centers of the General Cotton Corporation in the governorates.
The Ministry of Agriculture and Agrarian Reform in Damascus just published statistics on areas, including that only 62% of the agricultural plan was implemented, and that the area cultivated with cotton in all Syrian regions amounted to about 29,000 hectares.
The industrialists in the government-held areas are also suffering from economic deterioration after successive crises and the deterioration of the living conditions, which has not been mitigated by various government measures.
“I don’t want to bother myself”
Mahmoud Hussein, a farmer from the town of Kedeiran in the western countryside of Raqqa, did not plant cotton this year, due to a loss of $2,200 last year.
The direct cause of the loss was the Egyptian cotton leafworm that destroyed most of its bushes before the harvest season.
This year, Raqqa’s countryside also recorded a wide spread of insect pests in many agricultural lands, some of which recorded severe damages, according to the Prevention Office of the Raqqa Agriculture Committee.
In a previous statement to North Press, Engineer Hammoud al-Khalaf, head of the Prevention Office in Raqqa, blamed the farmers for not visiting the Indicative Units in the villages to take the necessary instructions on how to treat or prevent the pest.
While farmers noted to the lack of effective pesticides and the high cost of some of them.
“I don’t want to bother myself,” Hussein said.
On the World Cotton Day, the UN calls to continue working to provide assistance to the cotton sector in the developing countries to continue to increase productivity, investment, innovation and sustainable standards.