Finding few other options, many women and girls in the Deir e-Zor countryside spend their days in the fields as hourly farmworkers, facing difficult conditions for meager pay.
A sharp decrease in the wheat price set by the AANES sparked protests and has left northeastern Syria’s farmers questioning the economic viability of cultivating their land next season.
The unlikely fruit of war and displacement, unconventional crops like strawberries, broccoli and Damask roses are taking root in Idlib province, where they were seldom cultivated before the war.
Since late 2023, the Syrian regime has been waging a drone war in northwestern Syria. As civilians in areas near frontlines are targeted, the threat of attacks keeps farmers from their land, destroying livelihoods and threatening the area’s food security.
Trees have fallen under the axe in Daraa and across Syria since the spring 2011 revolution, cut for wood to sell or use as an alternative to heating and cooking gas during war, siege and economic crises. Since 2020, however, logging has increased to include fruit-bearing trees on private farmland and within cities.
Farmers in northeastern Syria are reducing the amount of land they cultivate or relying on the rain for irrigation as weak fuel subsidies and high costs make farming increasingly unprofitable.
Farmers who rely on the Afrin River to irrigate their crops suffer heavy losses after the river ran dry this summer due to factors related to the February 6 earthquake and a changing climate.
Cracks, soil displacement and flooding due to the February 6 earthquake severely damaged farmland along a 55-kilometer stretch of the Orontes River in Syria’s northwestern Idlib province, wiping out farmers’ crops.
Amid a historic drought, dozens of new wells are being drilled across northwest Syria to meet a rising demand for water. But the overpumped water table is dropping, while farmers struggle with skyrocketing costs and decreasing water quality.
An exceptionally hard frost swept across northwestern Syria last month. In its wake, hard-pressed farmers in Idlib are struggling to recoup their losses and replant their fields.
