Syrian farmers pay price of worst drought in decades

Syrian farmers pay price of worst drought in decades

DAMASCUS: Syria’s worst drought in decades is taking a devastating toll on the agricultural region of Al-Nashabiyah east of Damascus. Water reserves are down by more than 60 percent on previous years, levels in dams in March were lower than the past two years, and some areas have lost more than 70 percent of their groundwater reserves. Farmer Mati Mohammed Nasser expects to

‘Zero season’: Syrian farmers face worst drought in decades - Syria Direct

DARAA/HASAKAH/PARIS — “I won’t plant a single dunam next year—it’s a losing business,” farmer Farhad Ahmad Sinjar said. For the past two years, he has watched his land produce less and less, parched by lack of rain. Now, he is giving up “the trade of our fathers and grandfathers.”  This year, Sinjar planted 150 dunams of irrigated wheat, and 150 more of rain-fed barley on his land in Ilejagh, a village outside the northern Syrian city of Kobani …