Wheat seeds provided to northeast Syria meet high standards for safety: USAID

QAMISHLI, Syria (North Press) – The wheat seeds recently provided to farmers in northeast Syria meet “high standards for safety and quality,” the US Agency for International Development (USAID) said on Thursday.

This came the Syrian government alleged that the seeds provided by the USAID are not suitable for cultivation.

“The wheat seeds go through treatment and testing for safety and quality before they are donated,” Voice of America (VOA) reported the USAID spokesperson.

The wheat seed provided by the USAID is being tested and awaiting the results, Salman Barudo, co-chair of the Economy and Agriculture Board of the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES), earlier said on Thursday.

“USAID is supplying Adana and Cihan wheat seed varieties to Syrian farmers, which are sourced from the region and undergo a series of tests at a qualified lab in (the) Kurdish Region of Iraq to verify their quality before they are transported and distributed to farmers in northeast Syria,” the spokesperson said.

The USAID spokesperson added that the “seeds are tested for purity, germination rate, smut, presence of barley, insects, Cephalonia, nematodes, and to ensure they are effectively treated with fungicide.”

In Mid-November, the USAID announced it will send three thousand tons of wheat seed to northeast Syria, with the aim of “helping Syrian farmers.”

On November 12, Barudo welcomed the USAID decision to send a quantity of wheat seeds for farmers to the region.

As a result of the low cultivation production, low rainfalls in light of the drought that worsened with the Turkish cutoff of the Euphrates River water supply to Syrian territory, the coming season will form a challenge to the AANES.