War and drought have crippled Syria's wheat crop, with some experts now forecasting output of the staple food could fall to around a third of pre-war levels, and possibly even below 1 million tons for the first time in 40 years.
Agricultural experts, traders and Syrian farmers who talked to Reuters gave crop estimates ranging from one million tons to 1.7 million at best, a more pessimistic range than that given by the United Nations earlier this month.
Before the war, Syria produced around 3.5 million tons of wheat on average, enough to satisfy local demand and usually permit substantial exports, thanks in part to irrigation from the Euphrates River that waters its vast eastern desert.
The last time its wheat harvest failed to exceed 1 million tons was 1973, although catastrophic droughts have pushed the crop close to that level in 1989 and 2008.
The UN's World Food Program (WFP) had cited an estimate of 1.7 million to 2 million tons for this year and said that rainfall relied on for crops in Syria's northwestern region was less than half of the average since September.
Before the war, the Syrian government typically bought around 2.5 million tons of wheat each year to distribute to bakeries that feed the public subsidized bread, and to bolster its strategic reserve.
Government purchases of domestic wheat have declined and are expected to fall further as chaos caused by civil war and drought hurt the state's ability to secure supplies.
Nearly a third of Syrians have either fled the country or are displaced within it, and swathes of territory are in the hands of rebels fighting to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad, where the government food distribution system has crumbled.
The agriculture ministry told state media earlier this month that wheat was being grown on 1.2 million hectares of land but did not give an estimate of how much would be produced or bought by the government. Syria typically planted 1.7 million hectares before the war, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Experts doubt the Damascus government's ability to forecast figures accurately, citing the difficulty of gaining access to most crop growing areas.
Agriculture ministry officials declined to comment on the matter when contacted by Reuters.
Yusef Abu Ahmed, a farmer in Atma, a northern village near the Turkish border, said by telephone that the length of wheat stalks was about 20 centimeters compared with 80 centimeters in normal years.
Some farmers have pumped underground water to compensate for poor rain, but the high cost of diesel has limited that choice for others in the western agricultural belt of Idlib, Aleppo and Homs, where wheat production is mostly rain-fed.
With drought hitting its rain-fed wheat crop in the west, the hope for Syria seems to lie in its irrigated crop lands in the east, which before the crisis constituted almost 60-70 percent of the country's total wheat production.
Some local farmers told Reuters they have sown large tracts of land using elaborate irrigation canals and dams that preceded the crisis, and have escaped widespread damage.
The agriculture ministry says it set aside 80 billion Syrian pounds ($539.88 million) to buy wheat and barley this season.
Still, even with the funds for procurement set aside and with irrigated lands escaping the drought, the government is not guaranteed to get its hands on the production.
In many parts of Syria's main eastern breadbasket area known as al-Jazira, which spans Hasaka, Deir al-Zour and Raqqa provinces, the government is not in control. The area around the now rebel-held city of Raqqa alone produces around a quarter of the national harvest.
Government officials do have good access to areas in Hasaka, Hama and some areas in the northeastern part of the country near the Kurdish-held Qamishli city, another agricultural expert said on condition of anonymity. But the situation in the country overall remains murky. ($1 = 148.1800 Syrian Pounds)
REUTERS