Manbij farmers talk about damage in winter, summer crops

SALWA ABDUL RAHMAN/ MANBIJ

After the rains in May, the people of Manbij began working in their fields, but the rains destroyed winter crops such as barley and wheat, and were damaged by summer vegetables such as molokhia, zucchini, lettuce and garlic, where there was a significant weakness in production and large losses.

A number of farmers told ANHA agency that production this year was very poor compared to previous years, due to late rains and floods.

"This year there was no rain at first but in the last period a rainstorm came and destroyed many agricultural crops, especially winter," says farmer Khamis Mohammed al-Satouf from al-Mankouba village northeast of Manbij.

Al-Satouf added that summer crops also suffered their share of the rainstorm, where the plants were sunk when floods and torrents swept away the plants with rainwater, he pointed out that they are now cleaning the land of vegetables of eggplant, tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers.

Al-Satouf are now exporting the zucchini crop, planted 50 days ago to the sale market at 160 SP per kilo, but the farmer says that this price does not meet the needs because the cost more than the damage and the disposal of pesticides and fertilizers and fuel oil.

Al-Satouf says that the wage of workers who work in his orchard is 150 SP, where the workers work 4 hours and the workers' wages at the end of the day is 600 SP.

Al-Satouf confirmed that the rest of the summer vegetables have not yet been harvested, where the work has been continuing so far from the cleaning of pesticide workshops, fertilizer and permanent watering.

In Abdul Basset orchard, vegetables of parsley, chickpeas, molokhia, lettuce and garlic were damaged. Their leaves became yellow and had to be sprayed with insecticides because diseases such as spider disease and insect fungus infected them.

H/S

ANHA