More rain has signaled the end of three years of a devastating drought in Syria’s north-eastern region but it is not falling consistently enough to benefit this year’s harvests, UN agencies have warned.
“There is no longer drought because the overall levels of rainfall have been acceptable,” Abdulla Tahir Bin Yehia, head of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in Syria, said. “But abnormal rain patterns have remained. We describe the current situation as crop failure.”
In 2009, FAO gave seeds to 13,000 farmers but by March this year low rainfall and fluctuations in the temperature led to crop failure.
Although official crop yield figures are not yet available, the World Food Programme (WFP) estimated this year’s yield to be 2.5-3.3 million tons, significantly less than the target of over 4 million tons.
WFP said this crop failure meant the situation was still critical, despite higher rainfall.
Read more of the story here at the IRIN news service:
SYRIA: Drought over but crops still failing
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