Bassam Ali, head of the Citrus Export Committee, stated that the production rate for this citrus season in the areas under the control of the regime’s government does not exceed 250,000 tons, a figure that does not compare with the one provided by the Ministry of Agriculture regarding the season’s production estimates.
Ali clarified that the Ministry of Agriculture’s figures indicate a production of approximately 360,000 to 400,000 tons; however, real production does not exceed 250,000 tons.
The obstacles facing this agricultural sector are ongoing and increasing year after year, according to what the local Al-Watan newspaper quoted from the head of the Citrus Export Committee on Monday, November 4.
The head of the export committee confirmed that farmers are turning to more economically viable crops, noting that 50 to 60% of them have stopped cultivating citrus fruits, with some replacing citrus with other crops such as tropical farming.
Some farmers have turned to cultivating grape vines, which have recently seen significant demand in both local and foreign markets, while others are focusing on selling the entire harvest, meaning that they receive payment for the fruit while still on the trees.
In 2010, the volume of citrus production in Syria was around 1.25 million tons, indicating a decline in production this year by about one million tons.
Conflicting figures
Estimates from regime officials regarding the size of the current citrus production season are conflicting, coinciding with farmers’ fears of repeated issues in marketing their crops.
The latest estimate for the expected production of the crop in Latakia alone indicates 840,000 tons, according to the Director of Agriculture in Latakia, Bassam Duba, in a statement to Al-Watan newspaper on September 5.
Duba’s statements came just one day after the statement from the head of the Marketing Office at the General Union of Farmers, Ahmad Hilal al-Khalaf, to Al-Watan, where he estimated citrus production in all areas under regime control at around 650,000 tons, while production during the previous season was about 850,000 tons.
In a third statistic that presents another disparity with previous figures, Haydar Shaheen, Director of the Citrus Office at the Ministry of Agriculture, estimated in a statement to the government Al-Baath newspaper on August 21 that citrus production is 688,000 tons in all regime-controlled areas, noting that 99% of the citrus season’s production is concentrated in the provinces of Latakia and Tartus.
Accumulation and poor marketing
Every year during the citrus season, production accumulates with farmers, exposing it to rotting and spoilage, causing significant losses for farmers, with no effective government solutions, alongside the absence of any government juice factory in Syria to benefit from and process production for local sale or export.
Every year, government promises are repeated to prevent losses for citrus farmers in the Syrian coast; however, none of these promises are fulfilled, and successive government officials have failed to solve the marketing problem for citrus fruits, to the extent that some farmers have uprooted the trees and built residential buildings in their place or replaced them with other crops.
With the rising prices of fertilizers and most other agricultural costs, many farmers can no longer bear the losses.