by Hummam Sheikh Ali
DAMASCUS, Sept. 29 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. economic sanctions on Syria are severely undermining Syrian agricultural production by preventing Syrian civilians from securing fertilizers, fodder, and spare parts for machines among others, a Syrian agricultural official said Thursday.
The U.S. sanctions have harmed all aspects of economic life in Syria, but most importantly hitting the agriculture sector, which is an important economic driver in Syria, Raed Hamzeh, the head of the agricultural policies at the agricultural ministry, told Xinhua in an interview.
About 50 percent of the Syrian population lives in rural areas, and almost 20 percent of the Syrian labor force work in agriculture, according to statistics by the Syrian Central Bureau of Statistics.
Before the Syrian war in 2011, the agricultural sector had been one of the pillars of the Syrian economy with a considerable contribution to the gross domestic product (GDP). Furthermore, Syria used to be the only Arab country that was self-reliant in providing its needs of wheat.
However, over the past years of war, the agricultural output has been negatively affected, in large part by the U.S. economic sanctions in the first place.
Hamzeh told Xinhua that between 2011 and 2016, the Syrian agriculture losses were estimated at around 16 billion U.S. dollars.
He said such sanctions are actually hurting the Syrian people, not the government as claimed by the U.S. and its Western allies.
"These unilateral measures are having a direct impact on the Syrian people," he said.
Speaking of the various negative aspects of the U.S. sanctions on the Syrian agriculture sector, Hamzeh said fertilizers and feed are imported materials that have been greatly affected by the sanctions, which led to a scarcity of these materials in the local market, causing their prices to skyrocket, which affected agricultural production.
Sanctions also stopped the imports of veterinary medicines and vaccines, which led to a significant decline in livestock number, he said, adding that the U.S. sanctions also interrupted the process of securing spare parts for heavy machinery that are used in agricultural reclamation plans, which caused a delay in the implementation of these plans for land reclamation and expansion.
This has ruined the lives of Syrian farmers, a large number of whom have been forced to leave their homes and seek to make a living somewhere else, he said. ■
