Kindah Ibrahim on Rebuilding Syria’s Agriculture Sector
Learning from how communities adapted during the conflict could help make the nation more resilient to climate change.
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Rebel fighters seized Damascus in December 2024, ending the half-century-long rule of Bashar al-Assad and his father and predecessor, Hafez al-Assad. Now, having toppled the family that sparked a civil war in response to large-scale protests in 2011, the Syrian people have a long-awaited chance to rebuild. But it comes as the harms of climate change are deepening across the region.
Temperatures in Syria are rising, water stress is worsening, and desertification creeps across new land each year. Results of the UN’s first Global Stocktake, announced at COP28 in 2023, warned that without more substantial commitments to climate action, the planet faces a rise in temperature of three degrees by 2100, which could render swathes of the Eastern Mediterranean region and broader Middle East unlivable. Making matters worse, Syria must grapple with the fallout of conflict-related pollution and chronic neglect and mismanagement of natural resources during the fourteen-year-long war. (For more on how Syria’s new government is addressing climate change, read my earlier reporting in Atmos.)
For this week’s newsletter, I spoke with Kindah Ibrahim, an agricultural economist and researcher at the Czech University of Life Sciences Prague. Having studied for more than a decade with the aim of providing policymakers with evidence-based solutions for her nation’s post-war recovery, Ibrahim has some ideas about where to start with building a climate-resilient agriculture sector in Syria. One solution: Learning from the nation’s women and how they’ve kept certain agricultural practices alive amid the devastating conflict.
Editor’s note: These responses have been condensed and edited for clarity.
Marianne Dhenin: What are some of the main issues facing Syria’s agriculture sector, and how do you expect the Syrian government to begin addressing these?
Kindah Ibrahim: Due to the conflict and sanctions, many issues have emerged in the past fourteen years, and the agriculture sector is quite damaged now. There are landmines in the agricultural fields, and we need to assess the level of pollution in the soils, water, and the environment. There is also the topic of displacement, and farmers who are going back to their lands that they were forced to leave due to the conflict will need support to restart their work.
The new Syrian government alone cannot fix the current situation in the agriculture sector, but there are some good signs: [In June, 2025], there was a presidential decree to support wheat farmers, so those who deliver wheat to the government will get [an incentive bonus of] $130 per ton in addition to the [purchase] price, so this is one step that will help ensure that we have enough wheat. This step should be followed by others to support the whole sector.
MD: What steps need to be taken to rebuild Syria’s agriculture sector in a more climate-resilient way?
KI: We have always suffered from drought and a shortage of water, so I think one of the most important first steps is to invest in modern irrigation techniques. I would also like to see more talk about sustainable agricultural practices. Right now, we are still relying too much on conventional farming, and in the long run, we need to pay more attention to sustainable methods, such as scaling up conservation agriculture practices and modern irrigation techniques. We also need to raise awareness among farmers about climate issues. They notice these things, but there could still be more awareness raising.
Farmers are noticing heatwaves, variations in rainfall, and the spread of certain plant diseases. Recently, fires devastated many rural areas along the Syrian coast. Some farmers have started to shift towards less demanding plant production. For example, many are replacing citrus production with olive production. Olive trees require less input, less irrigation, and less labour. Still, farmers could learn more about sustainable production techniques and the management of natural resources through extension services.
MD: There has been little governmental support and sometimes even disruptions to international aid programs during the war. What adaptation strategies emerged during this period?
KI: There are some people who took the initiative [to implement regenerative agricultural practices]. For example, one of my colleagues is studying how some farmers started to use no-till practices. Dozens of farmers use it in the Latakia region alone, and others are trying to use new sustainable technologies. The studies are preliminary, but these first attempts look promising.
Some in rural areas in Syria collect wild plants, such as wild leafy greens (called Sleeq in the Coastal region dialect), cheesweed (khubbaiza), chicory (hendbe), or aromatic and medicinal plants such as thyme, oregano (zaatar), sumac, and hyssop (zufa), to supplement their diet. These are part of our traditional diet in Syria and are important not only in the rural areas. Even in the cities, you can find sellers at the food market with these plants. People in the cities prefer them because they consider them natural and healthier, as they grow naturally without any pesticides or fertilizers. There are also home gardens with basic vegetables, citrus and olive trees, and sometimes herbs for medicinal uses.
Women are more involved in [foraging and home gardening], and they also preserve food from what they cultivate to have a stock for the year. Storing food is a usual habit in Syrian households, but the methods changed during the conflict because, before, when we had electricity, many people would just put vegetables in the freezer. But now, instead of freezing, they preserve things in oil or salt water in airtight containers or through dehydration.
MD: Do you expect some of these strategies to help Syrians weather climate shocks in the coming years?
KI: Yes, not only something like food processing, but also maintaining a garden next to the house is a good strategy as climate change hits. Those gardens also contribute to preserving Syria’s biodiversity.
It will be important in future projects to target funds and training to the right places. If we show, for example, that supporting home gardens helps with food security, there should be a targeted provision of tools. Deciding who to support is also important. If we show that women are mainly responsible for preserving food, offering training and supplies for food processing could help. There are plenty of opportunities for these findings to be useful for donors, for international organizations, and for policymakers.
MD: During your research, you found that women are often community leaders and, when they receive aid, it stretches farther. You’ve also described women working as foragers, gardeners, and food preservers. Does this group have an important role to play in Syria’s reconstruction and in building a more climate-resilient future?
KI: That’s right. I found [in my research] that women-headed households have better nutritional value because they adopt more diverse diets than male-headed households, which indicates that programs focused on improving nutrition should focus on delivering support to women-headed households. We also found that women tend to spend aid on things that bring more benefits to their households, children, and the community. We shouldn't ignore the role of women in [Syria’s reconstruction] because, also due to the conflict, they have been left behind in many ways. They need to have a major role in the coming years.
Women can be given more support to lead within the community, for example, through creating community gardens, local food cooperatives, or microcredit for small businesses. These are areas where women already tend to have strong skills and networks, and I know there have been some success stories from previous projects. It’s also important to involve women in local decision-making around how resources are used because they often know best what their families and communities need. Women need a real seat at the table in Syria’s recovery efforts. Those efforts should be more inclusive and empowering.
For more on food security during crises and post-war recovery efforts in Syria from academics in the field, Ibrahim suggests:
- “Food Security and Livelihoods in Protracted Crisis: The Experience of Rural Residents in Syria’s War Zones” by Kindah Ibrahim, Miroslava Bavorova, and Edvin Zhllima in Food Security
- “Counting the Cost: Agriculture in Syria After Six Years of Crisis” (2017) by researchers at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
- “Socioeconomic Dimensions of Wild Food Plant Use During the Conflict in Syria” by Naji Sulaiman, Vladimir Verner, and Zbynek Polesny in Economic Botany