After floods ... This is what happened to agricultural crops in Kobani canton

SAMIRA DAWOUD- SHAILAN MUHAMMAD/ KOBANI

Most of the people in Kobani canton and its villages rely on agricultural land for their livelihood, but this year did not bring with them what they had hoped for, and it was considered the drought and bad year for farmers.

The floods in Kobani caused significant damage to many crops, especially "barley, cumin, lentils, chickpeas and vegetables."

At these times, we are harvesting crops, but this year we have not been able to harvest our crops because of heavy rains in recent days," said Mohammed Mustafa, from Moman village, whose his corps have been damaged by rain.

According to Mohammed, the damage was 40% of the agricultural crops in their village.

Kaniya Kordan neighborhood, east of the city of Kobani city, also known for its agriculture, was also exposed to the floods because of the water pool in the neighborhood as it adjoins the border with Bakur (northern Kurdistan) and collects water coming from the city.

"The rainfall has had a significant impact on our land in the neighborhood, considering that all the floods have gathered in the neighborhood and are still gathering," said Ahmad Alo from the same neighborhood.

According to the villagers, these rains had a great benefit on trees and wheat crop, unlike other crops.

In al-Jalabia district of Serin area at ​​Kobani canton, rainfed farmland has been transformed into croplands with ground and crops are only suitable for grazing sheep.

The percentage of rainfed agricultural lands in the majority area is 51,865 hectares, and the irrigated land area exceeded 1732 hectares, the damage percentage to agriculture was reached to 100% for rainfed land and about 40% for irrigated land.

Agricultural herdsmen (Bedouin nomads) began to flock to the land to rent the remaining farmers' crops, at a nominal price of only 25,000 SYP per hectare, because the crop was damaged and suitable only for grazing livestock.

In this regard, the farmer Mohammed al-Hussain from al-Jalabia district, said  that the floods which swept the areas did not keep some of their crops, which forced them to sell to livestock owners, who does not provide them half of the costs of their agriculture.

Mohammed al-Hussain asked the authorities to provide assistance to farmers because of their poor status after the agricultural season ended with "failure".

For his part, a spokesman of Agriculture and Economics Committee in al-Jalabia district Mustafa Sheikh Nouh, they do not have the budget and the possibilities to provide adequate assistance to farmers because of the expansion of the affected area.

This is the first time in Kobani canton, has witnessed this heavy rains this for 15 years.

(H/S)

ANHA