Damascus-Sana
In three years, the "Home Gardens and Food Processing" project managed to reach thousands of rural families and expanded its activities to include 8 governorates and new components such as raising poultry and fish.
The project launched its first steps in 2017 with the aim of improving the income level of rural families, enabling their livelihoods in their villages, and achieving food security and self-sufficiency according to the President of the Federation of Agricultural Chambers, Mohamed Keshtu, who explained that it is being implemented in cooperation between the Ministry of Agriculture and the Federation and the World Food Program.
Kashtu indicated that the project in its first year presented 3302 home gardens including seedlings, seeds, fertilizers and pesticides sufficient to grow 500 square meters, which are seasonal summer and winter gardens, in addition to five rural manufacturing units with their full requirements at the rate of one unit for every five rural families in the governorates of As-Suwayda, rural Damascus, Homs, Hama, and Latakia that manufacture Its products are either "jams, dairy, cheese, pickles, etc."
In the second phase of the project in the same year, the area of beneficiaries expanded to other governorates, where the number of beneficiaries increased to 3 thousand families and the governorates of Tartous and Quneitra joined it, according to Kashtu, who pointed out that in 2018-2019 the number of beneficiaries increased to 10 thousand families benefiting from grants and 40 units New manufacturing for 200 families, and Aleppo also joined.
In the fourth stage between 2019-2020, the project introduced 7,700 new gardens and a new grant component was introduced, which is home rearing of poultry, where 1,850 poultry grants were distributed at a rate of 20 laying hens with 200 kilograms of feed, feed and drink for each family.
The President of the Federation of Chambers stated that the number of granting manufacturing units rose in the fourth stage to 97 units and the number of beneficiaries of them reached 485 families and a new component was added is home rearing of fish with the provision of 25 grants and linked to home vegetable gardens to take advantage of the water products of fish in irrigation of gardens and what they have Water is a nutrient and protein component that is useful for plants.
The total number of manufacturing units provided in the project so far reached 143 integrated units in 8 governorates, namely, “As-Suwayda, Quneitra, Daraa, Rural Damascus, Tartous, Lattakia, Homs, Hama, and Aleppo”, which benefited 715 families according to Keshto.
The president of the union explained that the idea of manufacturing units was launched by linking home gardens with these units by manufacturing garden products and achieving added value to create an integrated production loop and a product ready for marketing that has high specifications in terms of quality and cleanliness, indicating that the union provided with the units equipment a set of operational materials to help those families To start working and reduce costs for them, such as sugar, oil, bags, empty packages, and others.
On the marketing side, between Kashtu, all the products of the manufacturing units are sold as soon as they are manufactured in the vicinity of those units, which are required. This was an encouraging factor to continue.
Bushra Barhoum - Ghassoub Aboud
