Damascus - Sana
The Agriculture and Water Resources Committee in the People's Assembly discussed in a meeting today a number of issues related to the work of the Ministry of Agriculture and Agrarian Reform and its affiliates.
The head and members of the committee stressed the need for practical supervision by the ministry on the work of poultry farms, compensating farmers for losses caused by weather conditions, ensuring the quality of imported fertilizers and their conformity with specifications, investigating regarding poor storage of the barley crop in Al-Hasakah Governorate, and paying compensation to those affected by the governorate as a result of fires during the past years.
The committee called for granting facilities to import harvesters, repair idle tractors in Aleppo governorate, secure production requirements, support livestock with feed ration, secure veterinary vaccines, and pay attention to the national project to support potato seed production and start planting the sugar beet crop.
The committee called for barley to be considered a strategic crop, wondering about the possibility of building water tanks in the areas that were exposed to fires, and in his response to the committee’s demands, the Minister of Agriculture and Agrarian Reform, Engineer Muhammad Hassan Qatana, confirmed that the ministry had set a timetable in coordination with the Ministry of Oil and Mineral Resources to distribute the allocations of diesel to farmers. Fairly, pointing out that the reason for the increase in poultry prices is due to the high prices of feed and production requirements.
Minister Qatana indicated that work will be made to compensate for the shortage of agricultural tractors, and cooperation has been made with the Ministry of Water Resources to secure all the needs of wells and irrigation networks for farmers, while the percentage of land planted with wheat reached 60 percent. The price of a kilo of wheat is set early in the season and based on a careful study .
The Minister of Agriculture pointed out that main, central, branch and spatial committees were formed at the village level in the governorates where the fires broke out to register the requests of farmers whose lands and facilities were burned. Compensation was distributed to those affected, and three villages remained that did not receive compensation and 950 objections were recorded. They are required to pay and their owners were granted compensation, and the rest did not prove that they have a right to these compensation, but during the last four days we were surprised by submitting 3,500 objections and they will be considered and audited tomorrow.
He pointed out that with regard to poor storage of the barley crop in Al-Hasakah Governorate, the matter is currently being investigated.
