Homs-Sana.
Apple farmers in various regions of Homs finished harvesting the crop for the current agricultural season, and large quantities of it were stored in storage and refrigeration units to be marketed during the coming months, in light of the presence of marketing and storage difficulties.
The head of the Fruit Trees Department specialized in the cultivation of Homs, Eng. Naji Saed, explained to SANA that Homs ranks first among the governorates in terms of production, which is distributed mainly in the villages of the Western Center, rural Qusayr, Taldo and Talkalakh, pointing out that the area planted with apples exceeds 112 thousand dunums. While production was estimated at more than 124,000 tons, an increase of more than 30,000 tons over last season.
And a number of farmers, including Gerges Salloum from the village of Kfaram and Mahersloum from the village of Rabah in the western countryside of Homs, stated that the quantities of production for the current season were generally good, but were affected by the cold wave that all the villages of the western countryside witnessed last May, which led to damage to large proportions of the crop. And it left clear negative effects on the quality of the fruits during ripening, which led to a decrease in their marketing price in the markets.
The farmers indicated that they continued to work to provide the required care for apple trees despite the high prices of agricultural inputs, pointing out that a large part of us stored their crops in refrigerators intended for preserving crops to sell them in the coming months at better prices.
Others called for providing work requirements and increasing the positive intervention of the Syrian trade in the marketing process in terms of price and quantity, in addition to securing suitable quantities of electricity and fuel for the necessity of operating storage units to ensure the quality of stored apples.
Abdul Hamid Junaidy
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