QC projects enhance food security in NWS Syria

Qatar Charity (QC), in partnership with OCHA’s Syria Cross-border Humanitarian Fund, has inaugurated a bread production line and silos in Al-Rai, a subdistrict in northern Aleppo governorate, northern Syria. This is part of QC’s ‘Support Wheat Value Chain in Northwest Syria’ project that has been being implemented for three years to contribute to enhancing the food security and livelihoods in northwestern (NWS) Syria.The inaugural ceremony was attended by Bakir Shan, director of Turkey’s Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency (AFAD) in Gaziantep, in addition to the representatives of Al-Rai town's local council, agriculture directorate and many local bodies. The production capacity of the bread production line is 5,000 loaves per hour, while the silos' storage capacity is 12,000 tonnes. The silos consist of 12 cells with a capacity of 1,000 tonnes for each.The ‘Support Wheat Value Chain in Northwest Syria’ project also includes the installation of a mill with production capacity 50 tonnes of flour per day.Under the project, 2,500 tonnes of wheat were purchased and milled to be distributed to the beneficiaries in the form of free and subsidised bread.Qatar Charity, through this project, contributes to enhancing food security in the region by operationalising silos, bread production lines, and mills, in addition to providing farmers with livelihood opportunities through supporting them with agricultural inputs for wheat cultivation, and building the capacities of local communities to manage the facilities for sustainable development and self-reliance.During its three years, the project has so far made several achievements in the countryside of Aleppo in northern Syria since 2019. They include supporting the cultivation of three stations for wheat seeds multiplication, in co-operation with the General Organisation for Seed Multiplication, the rehabilitation of three wheat silo facilities, containing 36 storage cells with a capacity of up to 1,000 tonnes per cell, in Marea, Sharran and Al-Rai, and the installation of two mills with a production capacity of 50 tonnes of flour per day in Marea and Al-Rai.The project also supported 1,004 wheat farmers with agricultural inputs such as seeds, fertilisers, pesticides and the cost of supplemental irrigating and harvesting. A total of 1,004 hectares were cultivated and 4,000 tonnes of wheat were produced. Besides, 6,549 tonnes of wheat for milling were purchased from farmers to promote the marketing and cultivation of wheat by farmers in the region, in addition to distributing nearly 7,280,000 bundles of bread to the people in NWS Syria.