After 4 Yrs. Of Drought, Syrian Wheat Crop Down By Nearly Half - 1 Million Have Migrated To Cities

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A severe four-year drought is devastating Syria's rural communities, forcing them to abandon the country's traditional breadbasket in the northeast for cities in search of employment. Earlier this month, the World Food Programme started delivering food aid to nearly 200,000 people in the provinces of Al-Hasakeh, Al-Raqqa and Deir Ezzor, areas worst hit by the drought.

The WFP says tens of thousands of the most vulnerable families have benefited from the food aid programme. But due to low levels of funding, the UN food agency says 110,000 people are still in need. "The situation is really bad" in northeast Syria, said WFP official Selly Muzammil.

It is the second time that food aid has been distributed in Syria since the United Nations initiated a plan last year to combat the drought in afflicted areas. The situation has triggered a mass exodus of people to urban areas in search of work. The UN estimates more than a million people have left the northeast for urban centres, with farmers simply not cultivating enough food or earning enough money to sustain them.

One of them, Myassar Darwish al-Hussein, 22, came to Damascus from Deir Ezzor with his family three months ago, and found a job in a factory where he earns less than 200 dollars a month. In Deir Ezzor, "the crop yield has fallen by 70 percent," he said. His brother stayed behind to continue farming wheat and sugar cane. But, as Hussein explains, the situation is particularly difficult because, on top of the drought, fuel prices have shot up after the government's decision to start phasing out state subsidies on basic commodities. Wheat production, seen as one of Syria's key strategic resources, is believed to have fallen this year to 2.4 million tonnes, down from 4.1 million in 2007, while domestic consumption has risen to 4.0 million tonnes annually, according to the ruling party's newspaper Al-Baath. "We are going to import wheat for the third consecutive year," the daily said last week.

EDIT

http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Job-hunting_Syrians_head_for_cities_amid_severe_drought_999.html