Enab Baladi – Hani Karazi

With the start of the citrus season each year, the regime’s government enters a state of confusion regarding how to dispose of the crop.

Farmers suffer repeated losses, causing some to abandon citrus farming, while the concerned officials are content with making repeated promises to market the citrus and prevent farmers’ losses, none of which have been fulfilled.

The phenomenon of citrus production piling up with farmers in recent years has repeated, leading to rot and spoilage. Some have uprooted trees and built residential buildings in their place or replaced them with other crops like avocados, mangoes, and bananas.

Conflicting numbers and decline

Regime officials’ estimates of the current citrus season’s production have conflicted, coinciding with farmers’ fears of repeated poor crop disposal.

The latest production estimate for Latakia alone is about 840,000 tons, according to the Director of Agriculture in Latakia, Bassam Duba, in a statement to the local Al-Watan newspaper on September 5.

Duba’s statements came just a day after the head of the marketing office in the General Union of Farmers, Ahmad Hilal al-Khalaf, told Al-Watan that citrus production in all regime-controlled areas was estimated at around 650,000 tons, while last season’s production was around 850,000 tons.

In a third statistic conflicting with the previous numbers, the head of the citrus office in the Ministry of Agriculture, Haider Shahin, estimated citrus production at 688,000 tons in all regime-controlled areas, according to his statement to the government Al-Baath newspaper on August 21. He noted that 99% of the citrus production is concentrated in the provinces of Latakia and Tartus.

According to the estimates, Latakia ranks first in production with more than 540,000 tons, followed by Tartus with 147,000 tons, and Homs with 4340 tons, according to Al-Baath.

The planted area in regime-controlled areas is about 40,581 hectares, with a total number of trees reaching approximately 14 million, 13.6 million of which are fruit-bearing in Latakia alone.

The head of the marketing office in the General Union of Farmers attributed the production decline to bad weather conditions and cold affecting the fruit, according to his statement to Al-Watan.

In turn, the head of the citrus office in the Ministry of Agriculture told Al-Baath that production decreased by about 18% due to weather conditions and the heatwave during the flowering and setting period, accompanied by a drop in atmospheric humidity levels, in addition to the alternate bearing phenomenon in some varieties.

The alternate bearing refers to the variation in production between seasons, where a productive season is followed by one with lower yield.

Costs greater than prices

The head of the Latakia Farmers Union, Adib Mahfouz, told the local site “Athr Press” that prices do not match the significant rise in production costs, with the cost of producing one kilogram of citrus estimated between 2500-3000 Syrian pounds.

Mahfouz explained that production costs have significantly increased from the previous year, citing that the price of a 7-kilogram plastic box reaches 5,000 pounds, and fertilizer bags range between 500,000 and 700,000 pounds, in addition to rising transportation, labor, and medicine costs, confirming that the farmer is the weakest link in the agricultural production process.

The current price of a kilogram of lemon in the al-Hal market ranges between 1500-2000 pounds. Therefore, after accounting for the packaging box cost, transportation, and commission, the farmer ends up with no profit, having worked the entire year for free.

Marketing failures

At the end of August, there was a debate over the citrus marketing file during the regime government’s meeting to discuss it, attended by the ministers of agriculture, economy, industry, and trade. They only made promises that this citrus season would be better.

Al-Watan newspaper reported that the meeting included much blaming and shifting responsibilities among the concerned bodies, which appealed to decision-makers to find solutions to the citrus marketing issue, holding the relevant ministries accountable for failing to find solutions.

A member of the Damascus Committee of Vegetable and Fruit Traders and Exporters, Mohammad al-Akkad, expressed to Al-Watan his pessimism about improved citrus marketing in the coming season as promised by the officials in their last meeting, pointing out obstacles every season for citrus marketing, with marketing regressing each year instead of progressing.

Economic researcher Younis al-Karim commented that the repeated failure to export citrus is because the regime cannot solve several issues. The first is the high price of citrus intended for export due to high storage and cooling costs with a lack of electricity, alongside high transportation costs both within Syria and to the final destination, due to high fuel prices and tolls imposed by regime checkpoints, causing importers to shy away from Syrian citrus and instead seek to import it from other countries at lower prices.

Al-Karim told Enab Baladi that Arab openness did not help the regime market citrus because of the poor reputation of Syrian citrus, resulting from the regime hiding Captagon pills inside its exports, which complicates export and imposes many conditions on it.

Economic affairs expert Mohammad Bakour said that the central bank’s policies cause exporters to refrain from exporting citrus, as the central bank mandates them to return 50% of the foreign currency income from citrus exports to the bank within a month, which then exchanges the amount for Syrian pounds at the official rate.

The central exchange rate is 13,600 Syrian pounds per dollar, while the black market exchange rate is about 14,700 pounds, meaning citrus exporters incur significant losses because of the exchange rate difference.

Bakour added to Enab Baladi that Syrian citrus trucks wait for a long time at border crossings, especially at the Nasib border crossing with Jordan, for thorough drug inspections, which affects citrus quality.

The Syrian Trading Establishment promised to market part of the citrus production in Latakia this year, but the amounts marketed last year were very modest, not exceeding 5,000 tons, a very small number compared to the province’s production which exceeded 600,000 tons.

No citrus juice factories

Since 2015, there has been talk of establishing a government citrus juice factory in Latakia, with an annual capacity of 50,000 tons of citrus juice, but the project has remained mere statements. It was revived by the Syrian businessman close to the regime, Samer Foz, in February 2019.

Foz mentioned then on “X” (formerly Twitter) that he had obtained a license to establish the factory, aiming to utilize the local workforce, coordinate local resources, and integrate them with individuals’ energy.

Despite these statements, the factory has not been realized. Former Minister of Industry, Ziad Sabbagh, explained in August 2021 that there was no benefit in establishing a government citrus juice factory, considering that most coastal citrus fruits are suitable for table consumption only, not juicing.

Despite the significant surplus in citrus and marketing challenges, Minister of Industry Abdul Qader Jokhadar stated that the ministry, in cooperation with concerned parties, is working on marketing the citrus season and coordinating with the private sector, which produces juices. There are seven industrial establishments producing natural juices, especially citrus, five of which are operational and can absorb 500,000 tons annually, and two facilities are being studied for the addition of a new juice production line.

However, the Director of Technical Affairs at the Ministry of Industry, Mohannad Jarkas, confirmed to Athr Press that there are no Syrian companies producing natural juices, adding that the ministry does not establish unprofitable factories, and the juice company is unprofitable as Syrian citrus is unsuitable for juicing.

On the possibility of establishing a juice factory to absorb the production, Firas Shaabo said that anything investment or developmental is not within the regime’s agenda due to a lack of financial capability on one hand, and the absence of a suitable environment encouraging investors to open juice factories to absorb the citrus surplus on the other hand. There is no security stability, services, or infrastructure.

Shaabo added that even if investment conditions were assumed to be provided, an investor wanting to open a juice factory would face organizational and legal barriers imposed by the regime, delaying or preventing such a project, in addition to extortion and bribes that the regime’s checkpoints would impose on juice shipments the investor would send to the markets.