Wheat Is Doing Well in Syria

In 1991, Syria, the breadbasket of the ancient world, became self-sufficient in wheat for the first time since the 1950s.

Since 1989, production has virtually doubled to 3.6 million tons due to new technology, increasing national income by an estimated US$414 million a year. And, yield has risen sharply-from 0.6 t/ha in the 1950s and early 1960s to 1.5 t/ha in the late 1980s to 2.6 t/ha by 1993.

This is partly the result of new varieties, but there are other reasons too.

What were the main factors? Syria's Ministry of Agriculture and Agrarian Reform, which spearheaded the campaign to improve output, decided to find out through a farmer survey conducted jointly with the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA). The survey also studied whether the new technologies offered to farmers had been suitable in the first place--something often overlooked.

The study, which covered the 1990 to 1993 seasons, found that the rise in production was due to several factors. New varieties headed the list, accounting for about 35 percent of the increase. In 1973, only 15 percent of Syria's wheat area was planted to high-yielding varieties. Today, 80 percent is, and more than 70 percent to "Cham" lines bred by ICARDA in the 1980s in a joint program with the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and the national research systems.

Better management, irrigation and increased fertilizer use were estimated to have contributed 23 percent, 19 percent and 23 percent, respectively. Productivity of irrigated wheat had improved far more than that of rainfed wheat. Irrigated wheat area has more than doubled since 1973. And the area that is irrigated and planted to high-yielding varieties increased from 50,000 to 250,000 hectares between 1973 and 1990.

Irrigation of wheat is very profitable, and the survey team discovered that about 85 percent of those farmers having a water source used it to irrigate all or part of their wheat crop. This helps explain why production rose since 1980 despite a slight decline in wheat area.

The survey also found other helpful results:

The first-year showed that specifically-adapted varieties were not always being grown in environments that best exploited their genetic potential. The government has now modified its seed distribution mechanism.
The dramatic increase in production was the result of new varieties in conjunction with a package of inputs and management techniques. But sharp increases in yield cannot occur without good management.
Potential yields can be even higher, but further work in research and extension is needed.

(ICARDA news release)