80% of QC project to enhance food security in northern Syria completed
QATAR Charity (QC), through its regional office in Turkey, continues to implement a qualitative project, the first of its kind in the region, in partnership with international humanitarian organisations, aiming at enhancing food security in northern Syria, especially in light of the crisis that Syria has been going through for the past nine years.
According to a QC press release 80 percent of the project, being implemented in partnership with the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and the World Food Programme (WFP), has been completed so far.
The project is expected to provide food security for 24,510 people of Marea, a town in Syria, and the surrounding areas, in addition to benefiting indirectly over 267,000 people across the northern countryside of Aleppo.
The project includes storing wheat, purchasing a mill, providing technical support to farmers and educating them, according to the need assessment made by Qatar Charity in 2019.
The project, which supports the wheat crop from seed to bread and distributes it to beneficiaries for a period of 14 months, comes at a time when agriculture is a source of livelihood for 65 percent of the population in northern Syria.
The project works on storing wheat in silos with a total storage capacity of 12,000 tonnes of wheat, in addition to purchasing a new mill with a production capacity of 50 tonnes of our per day.
To support the marketing of wheat, 1050 tonnes of wheat was purchased for milling and supporting the kiln with our and 905 tonnes of bread was also distributed.
Qatar Charity has provided 200 agricultural baskets containing fertiliser and pesticides to 200 farmers, with each of them growing one hectare of wheat as part of the project.
QC has also extended technical support to the farmers by holding awareness sessions and distributing leaflets, in addition to delivering 278,000 litres of diesel to the beneficiaries for supplementary irrigation of wheat fields.
In the meantime, technical staff is being trained to manage the silos and mill, in addition to training the local council to manage and continue operating the silos and the mill. The mill is expected to be installed on the project site in the eighth month.
Engineer akaria al Mutair, the food security and livelihoods official at the regional office of Qatar Charity in Turky, said that the project was designed to store wheat, in addition to producing our and distributing bread.
Mutair added that this project is the first of its kind in the region, especially as it further enhances food security in northern Syria using silos with a storage capacity of 12,000 tons of wheat. There will be a strategic stockpile that will meet the need of Marea for two years in a row.
For his part, the Deputy Head of the local Marea Council Omar Kor Bilal described the project as “huge” because it contains setting up a wheat mill with a daily production capacity of 50 tonnes.
The farmers expressed their happiness over the project. Subhi al Najjar, a farmer, said that he returned to cultivate his land, which is his only source of livelihood, after a four-year hiatus, thanks to the support given to him in this regard.