Memorandum of Understanding between the Syrian Trust for Development and ACSAD to develop work in the agricultural sector

Rural Damascus-SANA

Building strategic partnerships with Arab and international organizations and finding sustainable solutions to agricultural development challenges are the most important objectives of the framework memorandum of understanding signed today by the Syrian Trust for Development with the Arab Center for the Study of Dry Areas and Arid Lands (ACSD) in the center’s main building in Al-Saboura area.

Through this memorandum, the Syrian secretariat seeks to enhance cooperation and exchange experiences to achieve optimal investment of resources in the agricultural sector, both plant and animal, through the implementation of programmes, projects and activities in a number of targeted Syrian governorates within its development plans.

In a press statement, the Executive Director of the Secretariat, Shadi Al-Ashi, indicated that this memorandum establishes the achievement of sustainable agricultural development and contributes to developing the expertise, technical capabilities and collective techniques of the sector, which contributes to achieving better productivity for individual projects and helps define frameworks for cooperation and coordination between the two sides by involving local communities in planning. and implementation as it realizes that the development process can only be achieved through partnership and cooperation with various official bodies and Arab and international organizations working in this field.

Al-Ashi pointed out that according to the memorandum, technical, scientific and administrative consultations will be provided, and annual implementation plans will be developed and developed that include performance goals and indicators, and capacity-building of the target community members by preparing an annual work plan for the cultivation of aromatic, medicinal and fodder plants, fruit trees, and others, and carrying out studies and analyzes that support the distribution of the cultivation map of those plants. In the appropriate areas, identifying the water need and replacing the imported product with the local one, in addition to providing farmers with scientific and technical expertise, and providing production requirements, seeds, plantings and seedlings to them, especially in areas damaged as a result of fires.

ACSAD Director General, Dr. Nasr El-Din El-Obeid, stated in a similar statement that many agricultural development projects that support local communities and rural women will emerge under this memorandum to enhance their resilience, build their capacities and improve their income through implementing small and micro projects and mobilizing local, Arab and international energies and capabilities to find the necessary funding for them, stressing that Work will be started directly through the formation of supervisory committees in all governorates, especially the most needy governorates.

Under the memorandum, ACSAD experts will train residents to implement the aforementioned projects, which vary between handicrafts, cultivating saffron and the Damascene rose, establishing mountain lakes, supporting areas hit by fires during the past years, finding alternative crops in them, securing production requirements, seeds, fodder and analyzing the soil so that they can settle in their areas according to the slaves.

The expert in the field of productive and agricultural cooperatives in the Syrian Trust for Development Mustafa Al-Aboud pointed out that the work between ACSAD and the Syrian Trust for Development began through production cooperatives that targeted smallholder farmers and achieved success. Therefore, this memorandum will have a positive reflection on the agricultural sector and farmers in general through the experiences that it will provide ACSAD and the flexibility that the Syrian Trust for Development deals with in dealing with NGOs and government institutions, and the trust built between them and the local communities.

Abboud revealed that the studies to be presented by ACSAD experts include sound agricultural practices and properly marketable agricultural production, especially for the citrus crop and other sectors that will be worked on to advance under this agreement.

The expert in biotechnology at the Arab Center for the Study of Dry Areas and Arid Lands, Dr. Ali Abu Afifa, confirmed that ACSAD includes many laboratories for the development of agricultural and animal varieties. That is, the protein to search for the genes related to productivity or resistance to diseases in organisms at the plant and animal level, which will benefit the breeder in choosing the appropriate varieties for the parents of the cross.

Dr. Ghassan Abdullah, an expert in the production of plant tissues, explained that work is currently underway on tissue propagation of fruitful palm trees, due to the small number of palm shoots found in nature and their transmission to diseases, indicating that the number of plants that emerge from one or two shoots is much greater than the ones that give them The palm is abroad and is free from diseases and is planted directly because it has roots and a greater success rate, and it is an opportunity to expand the cultivation of palm trees in Syria and the Arab world.

It is noteworthy that the Syrian Trust for Development has been able, during 21 years of working in the development of local communities, to strengthen its companies with government agencies, specialized civil institutions and experts in order to achieve its goals in sustainable development in cooperation with the local communities in which it works in order to develop their skills and energies.

Ismail Ambassador

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