DAMASCAS, SYRIA — A 13-year civil war, drought, the global COVID-19 pandemic, impacts from the war in Ukraine and most recently a massive earthquake has decimated Syria’s people, economy and infrastructure. 

These successive shocks have severely damaged the Middle Eastern nation’s economy and social fabric, adding to the deterioration of the humanitarian situation, said the World Food Programme (WFP). As of late 2022, an estimated 12.1 million people — 55% of the population — are food insecure, the sixth highest in the world. Another 2.9 million people are at risk of becoming food insecure, a 52% increase in one year.   

More than half of the country’s population from before the internal conflict, which started in 2011, have been displaced. The nation’s gross domestic product shrank by more than half between 2010 and 2020, the World Bank said, prompting it to reclassify Syria as a low-income country in 2018. Depreciation of the local currency has led to rampant inflation, and extreme poverty has consistently risen, it said. 

Soaring commodity prices due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 have adversely affected Syria’s position as a net food and fuel importer. Food prices have skyrocketed with the cost to feed a family of five for a month exceeding the average household income by 41%. 

Agriculture is an important part of the economy, accounting for 20% of GDP and providing employment for one-fourth of the population. Wheat is the most important food crop, while sugar beet production is also significant. Other important grains include barley, corn and millet. 

Drought in 2021 resulted in record-low wheat production of 1.05 million tonnes and ongoing dry conditions, coupled with shortages of agricultural inputs, kept wheat yields low in 2022. Early estimates for the 2023-24 crop are showing some improvements in production, but damage from the earthquake in February could lower those totals.

Crop production 

Syria has gone from being self-sufficient and exporting part of its agricultural production to import reliant and among the most food insecure nations in the world. More frequent droughts, in 2018, 2021 and 2022, have impacted production as has damage to infrastructure.

Initial damage estimates from the 7.7 magnitude earthquake suggest that food production will be seriously affected with damage to farms, irrigation systems and agricultural machinery, according to the WFP. A chief technical adviser for Syria from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said there would be an immediate repercussion on the next wheat harvest because people were focused on the emergency. 

The FAO estimated that 3 million farmers need help while the World Bank said the sector has the greatest economic losses. The WFP said 40 bakeries were damaged by the earthquake and it was determining the priority and type of intervention needed with plans to start rehabilitation work in March. 

Cereals are produced across the country, but the eastern regions provide about 80% of the annual wheat and barley production. Prices have increased for all agricultural inputs and in some cases, there are significant shortages. In response, farmers left part of their lands fallow for the season or stopped servicing the planted crops, the FAO said. 

The Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) of the US Department of Agriculture estimates wheat production in 2023-24 to reach 2.8 million tonnes, up from 2 million tonnes in 2022-23, but down from the five-year average of 3.1 million tonnes. Prior to the civil war, the nation was producing 4 million tonnes of wheat per year.

According to news reports, Syria imported more than 500,000 tonnes of wheat in 2022 from Russian-annexed Crimea, 17 times more than it imported in the previous year. Wheat is imported mainly through ports in Latakia and Tartous and via the Beirut-Damascus road axis. Wheat flour also is imported by private traders and by international humanitarian agencies.

Barley production is estimated at 1 million tonnes in 2023-24, up from 700,000 tonnes in the previous year but down from the five-year average of 1.13 million tonnes. Corn production in 2023-24 is estimated at 140,000 tonnes, unchanged from the previous season and up from the five-year average of 128,000 tonnes, according to the FAS. 

Flour milling

Prior to the civil war, most of the grain silos, flour mills and bakeries in Syria received support from the government with the flour and yeast used to make the bread and the fuel used to power the bakeries provided at subsidized prices. Bread was distributed under subsidized prices. Since the conflict started, the flour-to-bread value chain has been severely disrupted.

The WFP has a range of projects aimed at making the people become self-sufficient, with an emphasis on a “farm-to-bread” wheat value chain. 

One pillar of that project is restoring the wheat value chain, including rehabilitation of four bakeries that provide fresh daily bread. Bread has become an essential commodity to meet minimum daily dietary requirements, especially for the poorest populations, the WFP said. 

In addition to the bakeries, the WFP rehabilitated the Al-Tawarij silo that stores 12,000 tonnes of wheat and added a generator to the Yarmouk mill to mitigate power supply cuts and safeguard the nation’s wheat flour production capacity. 

The Syria Recovery Trust Fund (SRTF) also is working to restart flour milling operations at three mills in northeast Syria. In November 2022, it delivered soft wheat to its first flour milling operation in the area. It also was supporting the mills by providing administration, management, technical and logistical support. In 2019, the SRTF opened a 45- tonne-per-day flour mill, which was supplying 40 local bakeries. 

Syria has 188 flour mills, with 162 in operation, according to a December 2020 report by the Whole of Syria Food Security Cluster. Twenty-six mills were closed with 23 inactive since 2015 due to diminishing returns of milling production, malfunctioning machines, ongoing conflict and the high cost of processing inputs. 

Most of the mills, 182, are privately owned while the rest are publicly owned. Individual mill capacities range from 0.5 to 1,000 tonnes per week, and each supplied between one and 70 bakeries. 

About half of the mills were operating at full capacity while the others were partially functioning due to a shortage of wheat, malfunctioning machines, fuel and energy access issues and high operational costs. Together, the mills have a maximum operating capacity of 19,993 tonnes per week but were producing 14,816 tonnes per week.