Damascus-Sana
Few interest and coordination between the concerned parties can turn the crops of medical and aromatic crops into a large tributary of the Syrian economy and reserve an important place in the balance of exports by taking advantage of the presence of 300 varieties in Syria, most of which are involved in the pharmaceutical industries, while the Ministry of Agriculture puts on its priorities only five types of which are Cumin, anise, pond and coriander.
Engineer Haitham Haidar, Director of Planning at the Ministry of Agriculture, said in a statement to SANA Economic Bulletin that these varieties receive the necessary attention by the ministry through the expansion of cultivated areas and communicate with the concerned authorities to indicate the volume of production to enter the processes of manufacturing, packaging, packaging and export surplus of them and the ministry is working to provide facilities And technical support to farmers to expand these crops in the future.
Haidar said that the production of medical and aromatic crops for the current season amounted to about 75 thousand tons, the most important of which is cumin by about 41 thousand tons, then grain of pond by more than 23 thousand tons and anise about 5900 tons, coriander by more than 4800 tons and fennel by 181 tons in addition to modest amounts of sumac and thyme.
The farmer Anwar Abdullah Falah of Hassakeh that the latency season of the new seasons, which depend on the people of the province economically as a crop that is grown Baal and do not need irrigation or fertilizer, and therefore the production costs are much lower than the costs of producing wheat and barley crops in addition to the life cycle of the plant Shorter than three months that allow the farmer to make use of the land to grow additional crops after harvesting the cumin crop.
Engineer Abdul Moeen Al-Qadamani, director of plant production at the Ministry of Agriculture, said that the most important aromatic plants implemented in Syria are (cumin, anise, pond, coriander and fennel) and most of the production has an external export market, especially cumin and anise, and there is a demand for cultivation by farmers because of the low costs of farming operations compared With the rest of the crops where agriculture depends entirely on rain and do not strain the soil and guaranteed marketing.
Qadamani said that the current season witnessed an increase in the areas planted with aromatic and medicinal plants by more than 130 percent, where the cultivated areas reached about 100,000 hectares out of the plan estimated at 76 thousand hectares distributed on the cumin crop by about 75 thousand hectares and then coriander by about 11 thousand hectares. 9 thousand hectares and anise by 5 thousand hectares and the rest of plants such as fennel, sumac and thyme more than 300 hectares, pointing out that the province of Al-Hasakah came first with an implementation rate of 407 percent and then the jungle area 239 percent and Raqqa by 154 percent.
Agricultural engineer Shoaib Karim pointed out that investing in medicinal and aromatic plants is an economically profitable project as it spreads naturally in different areas without the need for agricultural operations necessary for the rest of the crops and can be exported abroad and marketed locally and is environmentally friendly as it does not need large quantities of fertilizers Pesticides and therefore the cost of their production is low relative to yield and compared to other crops.
In turn, Engineer Omar Al-Shalt, member of the Federation of Syrian Chambers of Agriculture and President of the Association of Plant Products Exporters, said that the importance of cultivating medicinal and aromatic plants came from being a natural pharmacy and a real national wealth that greatly supports the national economy by exporting the products of this agriculture. Agriculture, support, encourage and train farmers to grow more and more areas of medicinal and aromatic plants and create industrial facilities that contribute to their collection, marketing and manufacturing instead of exporting them as raw materials.
Shalit said good quantities of unprocessed aromatic and medicinal plants were exported to more than thirty countries, including India and the Arab Gulf countries, where the Damascus Chamber of Agriculture granted certificates of origin to export more than 5,000 tons worth about $ 8 million during the first half of this year.
For his part, Fadi Zaini, owner of a facility for manufacturing and marketing medical and aromatic products, stressed the need for this agriculture to receive the necessary technical support for farmers and attention to post-harvest operations such as packaging and packaging, especially those intended for export to achieve added value, pointing to the existence of an active local market with attempts to export the manufactured product to Abroad through contacts with Syrian businessmen in Europe.
Nadim Mualla
SANA Economic Bulletin
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