Agricultural production, in particular strategic crops, were affected by the severe drought resulting from the little rainfall that barely reached 60 percent of the annual average, and the increase in temperatures of six to seven degrees above the average, said the minister in an interview with the Sham FM radio station.

The minister revealed that only 450,000 tons of barley out of the 2.2 million tons planned are expected to be produced this season, while almost one million hectares of land sown with rainfed wheat came out of the plan.

Turkish authorities reduced the water flowing into Syria via the Euphrates river, which also hurt wheat-sown areas on both banks of the river, added the Minister of Agriculture.

The Government of Damascus offered a wide range of incentives to farmers to plant cereals in order to increase production and avoid a shortage of wheat in the last two years due to arson and the looting of wheat by US troops in the northeast of the country.

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