Syrian Farmers Abandon the Land for Steadier Jobs

Syrian farmer Omar Abdel-Fattah was forced to abandon agriculture to make ends meet - AFP
Syrian farmer Omar Abdel-Fattah was forced to abandon agriculture to make ends meet - AFP
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Syrian Farmers Abandon the Land for Steadier Jobs

Syrian farmer Omar Abdel-Fattah was forced to abandon agriculture to make ends meet - AFP
Syrian farmer Omar Abdel-Fattah was forced to abandon agriculture to make ends meet - AFP

After years of war, drought and economic crisis, Omar Abdel-Fattah was forced to rent out his farmland in northeast Syria, preferring a more stable job to provide for his family.

"It breaks my heart to see someone else working my land," said Abdel-Fattah, 50, who grew wheat, cotton and vegetables in Jaabar al-Saghir, in Syria's Raqa province, for three decades.

He said he had to abandon agriculture to make ends meet and provide an education for his eight children because he can "no longer keep up with the costs of farming", including irrigation.

Agriculture was once a pillar of northeast Syria's economy.

The region was the country's breadbasket before 2011, when the government repressed peaceful protests, triggering a conflict that has killed more than 500,000 people and displaced millions.

Now the effects of climate change -- particularly rising temperatures and drought -- along with spiralling costs are dealing a heavy blow to agricultural production and the families that depend on it to survive.

Abdel-Fattah found a job at a water pumping station run by the area's semi-autonomous Kurdish administration.

It pays around $70 a month, so he also runs a small shop on the side selling hardware and other items to get by.

Some of his relatives have also rented out their land, while others have left Syria because of the dire financial situation there, Abdel-Fattah said.

He urged the Kurdish administration and international agricultural organizations to provide "support and loans" for farmers in the area.

"This is the only solution to save agriculture, help farmers and encourage them to return to their fields again," he told AFP.

Across vast swathes of Raqa province, empty farmland sits beside cultivated fields where farmers and workers harvest crops, including potatoes and corn.

Syria has endured more than 12 years of civil war, and Raqa was the center of the ISIS group's brutal "caliphate" in Syria until their ouster from the city in 2017.

Faruk Mohammed, a former farmer, wants northeast Syria's Kurdish authorities to 'save what's left' of the region's agricultural land - AFP

In the town of Qahtaniyah, Jassem al-Rashed, 55, said agriculture was his only income for 30 years but now it has become a "loss".

His children initially helped him on the land, but now he looks after the crops alone.

"Two of my children work in the livestock trade, and two others left for Europe, while three others joined the traffic police and security forces," he said.

"Farming is no longer right for them, after the recent years of drought," he added.

In November, the World Weather Attribution group said that human-caused climate change had raised temperatures, making drought about 25 times more likely in Syria and neighboring Iraq.

Suhair Zakkout is the spokesperson in Damascus for the International Committee of the Red Cross.

She has previously told AFP that "Syria's agricultural production has fallen by approximately 50 percent over the last 10 years" because of war and climate change.

In the far northeastern corner of the country, former farmer Faruk Mohammed, 40, gazed at his uncultivated land at Tal Hamis in Hasakah province.

Now a teacher employed by the Kurdish administration, he said he had changed job "to earn a living -- nothing more, nothing less".

He too expressed the hope that local authorities would help farmers and work to "save what's left of the agricultural land".

"Years of drought have hurt farmers, as well as the rise in fuel prices," he said.

More than a decade of war has shattered Syria's economy, and long daily blackouts mean people have to rely on generators for power amid regular fuel shortages.

Farmers told AFP they struggled to pay for seeds and fertiliser, with some turning to solar panels to help power water pumps.

Leila Sarukhan, an official with the Kurdish administration, acknowledged that factors including drought and rising costs had led to a decline in agriculture.

"Climate change is impacting rainfall, while desertification expands in northeast Syria," she told AFP, adding: "These are dangerous factors for farming."

Back in Raqa province, farmer Adnan Ibrahim said his children had left agriculture behind and joined the Kurdish security services instead "to earn a steady salary".

He pointed to farming equipment sitting idle near the house, and lamented the impact of climate change as well as rising prices.

But the 56-year-old also said the ever-present spectre of conflict influenced his children's decision.

"We are afraid of cultivating our land," he said.

"War could break out at any time and warplanes could bomb our lands. So having a steady job is better."



Drugs, Weapons in Syria Borderland Where Hezbollah Held Sway

Fighters loyal to the interim Syrian government deploy at a position along the Anti-Lebanon mountain range near al-Qusayr in the west of Syria's Homs province on February 10, 2025. (AFP)
Fighters loyal to the interim Syrian government deploy at a position along the Anti-Lebanon mountain range near al-Qusayr in the west of Syria's Homs province on February 10, 2025. (AFP)
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Drugs, Weapons in Syria Borderland Where Hezbollah Held Sway

Fighters loyal to the interim Syrian government deploy at a position along the Anti-Lebanon mountain range near al-Qusayr in the west of Syria's Homs province on February 10, 2025. (AFP)
Fighters loyal to the interim Syrian government deploy at a position along the Anti-Lebanon mountain range near al-Qusayr in the west of Syria's Homs province on February 10, 2025. (AFP)

In a desolate area of Syria where Lebanese armed group Hezbollah once held sway, security forces shot open the gates to an abandoned building and found a defunct drug factory.

Syria's new authorities launched a security campaign last week around Qusayr at the porous Lebanese border, cracking down on drug and weapons smugglers.

They have also accused Iran-backed Hezbollah, which for years propped up Bashar al-Assad, of firing at them in clashes in the weeks since his ouster.

"We've begun to comb factories used by Hezbollah and remnants of the defunct regime," said Major Nadim Madkhana, who heads Syria's border security force in Homs province near Lebanon.

Before Syria's war erupted in 2011, Syrians and Lebanese lived side by side in the border area -- a mostly tribal region long renowned for smuggling.

In April 2013, Hezbollah announced it was fighting alongside Assad's forces and leading battles in the Qusayr area, an opposition stronghold at the time.

After weeks of battles that displaced thousands of Syrians, Hezbollah seized control of the area, establishing bases and weapons depots and digging tunnels -- which Israel repeatedly targeted in subsequent years.

Hezbollah's support for Assad was as much an act of loyalty for its fellow member of the "Axis of Resistance" as it was a necessity for its own survival, with Syria acting as its weapons conduit from Iran.

"Under the defunct regime, this area was an economic lifeline for Hezbollah and drug and arms traders traffickers," Madkhana said.

In the building raided by Syrian border security, AFP correspondents saw large bags of captagon pills -- a potent synthetic drug mass-produced under Assad that sparked an addiction crisis in the region.

Both the sanctions-hit ousted government and Hezbollah, which is proscribed as a terrorist organization, have faced accusations of using the captagon trade to finance themselves.

In the months leading up to Assad's December 8 ouster, Hezbollah pulled many of its fighters back to Lebanon to fight an all-out war with Israel.

But it was only after his overthrow that it rushed the majority of its forces and allies out of the country.

Attesting to the speed of the pullout, plates of food were left to rot in the kitchen of one facility.

A damaged clock tower stands in the town of Qusayr in Syria's central Homs province on February 12, 2025. (AFP)

- Drug traffickers -

Snow-speckled dirt tracks leading to the facilities still bear marks left by barricades that smugglers had set up "to delay our advance", Madkhana said.

In recent days, Syrian forces have clashed with "Hezbollah loyalists and regime remnants" in the area, some of them armed with rocket launchers, he added.

Charred vehicles lay by the side of the road, near damaged luxury villas built by drug traffickers, residents told AFP.

Hezbollah provided cover for Lebanese and Syrian smugglers operating at the border, according to residents of the area.

After more than five decades of rule by the Assads, the opposition that once fought his army are now running the country, and that has had a knock-on effect on neighboring Lebanon.

Earlier this week, Madkhana told AFP Syrian forces had started coordinating with the Lebanese army at the border.

Last week, the Lebanese army said it was responding to incoming fire from across the Syrian border.

Syria shares a 330-kilometer (205-mile) border with Lebanon, with no official demarcation, making it ideal turf for smugglers.

People walk behind a destroyed building in the town of Qusayr in Syria's central Homs province on February 12, 2025. (AFP)

- 'Banned from returning' -

Since Assad's ouster, Syrians displaced during the war have started returning home to Qusayr.

After spending almost half of his life as a refugee in northern Lebanon, Hassan Amer, 21, was thrilled to return.

"I was young when I left, I don't know much about Qusayr," he said, painting the walls of his house with help from neighbors and families.

"We returned the day after the regime fell," he said, beaming with pride.

Hezbollah "took over Qusayr and made it theirs while its people were banned from returning," he said, adding that schools and public institutions had been turned into bases.

In 2019, Hezbollah said residents of Qusayr could return home, citing a decision by Assad's government.

Mohammed Nasser, 22, and his mother were among the lucky ones allowed back in 2021.

"My elderly grandfather was alone here... and I was under 18," he said, meaning he was not yet due for conscription.

His father stayed in Lebanon, fearing arrest.

For years, Nasser's family and a couple of others were the only Syrians living in the area, he said, while Lebanese "loyal to Hezbollah lived in the less-damaged houses".

Nasser's 84-year-old grandfather, also named Mohammed, recalled the day Assad and his family fled.

"On liberation day, they fled... and the town's people came back at night, before sunrise, to the sound of the call to prayer," he said.