🇸🇾 The cattle breeds of Syria

Syria's farming rests on ploughland and irrigation more than on herds, and cattle keep a modest place in it. Animals graze only where grass and coarse scrub survive in the dry belt, and livestock, like every other farm product, rise and fall with the rain. War has since dragged the whole rural economy down.

• Agriculture still makes up an estimated 26 percent of Syria's GDP
• 6.7 million Syrians, displaced people included, still live in rural areas
• In the mid-1980s about two-thirds of farm output, animals included, depended on rain
• Grass and coarse scrub in part of the arid belt allows only limited grazing
• Food production has sunk to a record low; half the population goes short

Cattle in Syria

Cattle keep a modest place in Syria's farming, which has long centred on ploughland and irrigation rather than on herds. Agriculture still makes up an estimated 26 percent of the economy and serves as a safety net for the roughly 6.7 million Syrians, displaced families among them, who still live in rural areas. Cultivation follows an arc of rain-fed land, the Fertile Crescent, from the southwest up to the Turkish border, with other fields watered from the Euphrates. Water is short across the whole region, and Turkey and Iraq draw on the same river. Only in part of the dry belt south and east of the arc does grass and coarse scrub permit any grazing at all. Rainfall decides nearly everything: in the mid-1980s about two-thirds of farm output, animal production included, depended on it.

Today

War has hit the countryside hard. Output of many farm commodities has fallen for want of security and the departure of agricultural workers, especially around Al-Hasakah and Aleppo. Food production now stands at a record low, and about half of the people still in Syria cannot meet their daily food needs. Yet farming remains a mainstay, still counted at roughly a quarter of the economy and a lifeline for rural families.