The Directorate of Agriculture in Lattakia expected that the governorate’s production of citrus for this year would reach 563,666 tons, a clear decrease from last year, due to weather conditions, lack of rain and scarcity of irrigation water.
The head of the Department of Fruitful Trees in the Directorate of Agriculture in Lattakia, Engineer Qais Ghazal, stated that the total number of citrus trees planted in Lattakia Governorate is 1,1094518, including 106,24945 fruit trees, while the area planted with it reached 32,470 hectares.
The director of the Citrus Office at the Ministry of Agriculture, Nashwan Barakat, said that the average production of citrus this year is about 777 thousand tons in the farming areas of Lattakia and Tartous, while the average production in the country in general is estimated at about one million tons.
Barakat confirmed that the current season’s production is sufficient for local consumption, justifying the reason for this decrease in production for several factors, including the lack of rain since last April, the high temperatures during the flowering and contract stages, in addition to the high production costs for farmers.
The Syrian Company for Trade .. And the “last solutions”!
As is customary every year, the Syrian trade halls are waiting to receive the citrus season and sell it at low prices. In this context, Engineer Rami Saleh, Head of the Marketing Department at the Syrian Trading Corporation, explained that a budget will be allocated for marketing and acquiring citrus through its outlets this year in a way that guarantees the rights of producers and the delivery of The article is for all citizens in addition to the provision of the article in all governorates.
While the director of the citrus office in the Ministry of Agriculture, Nashwan Barakat, indicated that the Ministry of Agriculture is responsible for production, while marketing is in partnership with the Ministries of Internal Trade and Economy. Last week, the Syrian Trading Establishment began marketing citrus fruits in Tartous, while it also started yesterday in Lattakia.
Citrus product in decline!
It is noteworthy that citrus production in the Syrian coast has remarkably declined during the last three years.
Last year, the Syrian coastal region’s production of citrus reached 788 thousand tons out of 800,000 tons, which is Syria’s production of citrus, a decrease of 32 percent compared to previous seasons, according to what the Director of the Citrus Office, Sahel Al-Hamdan, said in previous statements.
The area planted with citrus on the coast is about 43 thousand hectares, and more than 56 thousand families work in this cultivation.
During the last ten years, the cultivation of citrus, which is one of the most widespread trees on the Syrian coast, has suffered great losses due to several reasons, most notably the weak export and cheap prices due to the density of supply and the high cost of transportation, so that the crop did not cover production costs, which prompted some farmers to strike and refrain from harvesting the crop and affected Some of them uprooted trees.
With the fires last year that destroyed large agricultural areas in the coast, many farmers preferred to replace citrus trees with alternative crops, the most important of which are tobacco and vegetables.
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