The farmers hoped for some reprieve after Islamist rebels ended Assad’s 24 years of autocratic rule in December, but a devastating drought and continued water theft mean their crops are still dying, their pears and plums withering on the branch.

“The regime fell and we were hoping that our share (of water) would come, but it did not come,” said Mahmoud al-Hobeish, al-Nashabiyah’s deputy mayor standing beside a dirt-clogged, garbage-littered irrigation canal.

He said people and companies were diverting flows from shared waterways for their own use, leaving al-Nashabiyah’s farmers wanting.

Worst drought in decades

This is critical as Syria’s worst drought in decades takes a devastating toll on this agricultural region east of the capital city Damascus.

Hobeish said the area being farmed had decreased tenfold in the past year, while production was down 90 per cent compared to last year. Farmers are having to spend more money to dig wells, but even then they do not get enough to water their crops.

Hobeish is around $4,000 (C$5,435) in debt.

“People are asking for it and they know I cannot pay,” he said.

The drought, which the Ministry of Agriculture and Agrarian Reform says is the worst since 1958, is a devastating blow to a country already brought to its knees by more than 13 years of civil war, diplomatic isolation and Western sanctions.

Droughts have plagued Syria for decades, but few have been as dramatic as this year.

Water reserves are down by more than 60 per cent compared to previous years and levels in dams in March were lower than the last two years, the ministry said. Some regions lost more than 70 per cent of their groundwater reserves.

The drought could lead to the failure of around 75 per cent of wheat crops this year, threatening the food security of millions, the Food and Agriculture Organisation’s Syrian representative told Reuters in May.

In al-Nashabiyah, Mati Mohammad Nasser said he expected to lose his whole harvest of wheat, pears, plums and other fruits and vegetables.

“We were ruined this year,” Nasser told the Thomson Reuters Foundation as he surveyed his barren fields. “We have lost hope. We sold everything we had and invested it into the land.”

Generational trauma

The European Union and the United States said in May said they would lift sanctions on Syria. The country’s new government said this could allow fertilizers and irrigation technology to be imported.

But this will not help Nasser now. He fears he will have to sell some of his land and livestock to make ends meet.

He usually picks around 200 kg of pears a year from trees he has raised from seedlings. But this year, he plans to chop down the dead trees and use them for firewood.

He has already paid almost $2,000 to dig a deep well, but the water was just a couple of centimetres deep.

“What are we supposed to do with that?” he asked.

‘There is no harvest this year’

Farmers are not the only ones struggling.

In the capital Damascus, people are rationing their consumption of water, even in affluent neighbourhoods after the government restricted supply this year.

In Douma, a town on the northeastern outskirts of Damascus that was also a rebel stronghold during the civil war, Abu Yassir, who runs a farm supply store, said the drought meant business was down about 30 per cent this year.

Even during years of siege by government forces, Yassir said he never had to import seeds as he was able to source everything from the surrounding region, an agricultural hub.

But this year, local markets are depleted and he has had to import agricultural supplies like barley and increase prices by around 25 per cent.

“Things have become expensive,” he said in a telephone interview. “People who used to be keen to buy and had a lot of livestock are now forced to drive down their spending.”

In al-Nashabiyah, Kassim Ibrahim al-Saghir has been forced to scale back work on his farm, and if rains do not come soon he said he would have to sell some of the land that has been in his family for generations. He has lost more than 90 per cent of his crops this year.

“We have daily losses,” the 67-year-old. “There is no harvest this year.”

— The Thomson Reuters Foundation is the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters.

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Ukraine has been one of the world’s top grain and oilseeds exporters, and has been exporting wheat and corn to Middle Eastern countries, but not to Syria. Russia is the main supplier of wheat to Syria.

Syria imported food from Russia during the Assad era, but Russian wheat supplies have been suspended amid the uncertainty and payment delays, Russian and Syrian sources said on Friday. Two vessels carrying Russian wheat for Syria failed to reach their destinations.

Disruption in supplies could cause hunger in the country of over 23 million people.

“We are ready to assist Syria in preventing a food crisis, particularly through the humanitarian program ‘Grain from Ukraine’,” Zelenskiy wrote on X.

“I have instructed the government to establish food supply mechanisms in cooperation with international organizations and partners who can help.”

Ukraine’s exports were buffeted by Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, which severely reduced shipments via the Black Sea. Ukraine has since broken a de facto sea blockade and revived exports from its southern ports of Odesa.

CHECHNYA READY TO SUPPLY WHEAT

Chechnya’s Kremlin-backed leader Ramzan Kadyrov has said he is ready to step in if necessary and ensure that Syria gets the wheat it needs in what he said was the unlikely event that Russian wheat supplies to the country were disrupted.

In a message posted on his Telegram channel on Sunday, Kadyrov said that the two rerouted vessels had been carrying “commercial” wheat and that Russian state-backed supplies to Syria had not been affected.

“Even if for some impossible and incredible reasons this does happen, I, as the head of the Chechen Republic, am ready to take responsibility and ensure the necessary amount of wheat for Syria,” Kadyrov wrote.

Kadyrov did not specify how he would organise and finance wheat supplies to Syria if he had to step in and where the wheat would come from.

But he said he could act, if necessary, via a charitable fund named after his late father which helped to rebuild some mosques and provided humanitarian aid to Syria during ousted President Bashar al-Assad’s rule.

Russian analysts estimate Russia’s exports to Syria at 300,000 tons so far this season, with the country ranking 24th among buyers of Russian wheat. They estimate Syria’s total wheat imports at about 2 million tons.

Sources told Reuters the two sides are in contact regarding supplies.

— Reporting by Olga Popova, Gleb Bryansk, Tom Balmforth and Lidia Kelly

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Russia, the world’s largest wheat exporter, was a staunch supporter of Bashar al-Assad and supplied wheat to Syria through complex financial and logistical arrangements, circumventing Western sanctions imposed on both Syria and Russia.

A Russian source close to the government told Reuters supplies to Syria have been suspended because exporters are concerned by uncertainty over who will manage wheat imports on the Syrian side following the change of power in Damascus.

“I think no one would dare supply wheat to Syria under the current circumstances,” the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the situation, told Reuters.

Shipping data shows one vessel, the Mikhail Nenashev, is anchored off the Syrian coast, while another, the Alpha Hermes, is heading towards the Egyptian port of Alexandria after remaining off the Syrian coast for several days.

The Syrian General Establishment for Cereals Processing and Trade (Hoboob) used to conduct wheat purchasing tenders but has increasingly relied on a network of international intermediaries to maintain Russian supplies despite sanctions.

Rebel leader Ahmad al-Sharaa’s Islamist group, which ousted al-Assad in a swift campaign in Damascus last week, is asserting its authority over Syria’s state by deploying police and installing interim officials.

However, they have yet to establish a new administration in Hoboob or create another commodity importing agency, according to Syrian sources, who also spoke on condition of anonymity.

Russian and interim government in contact

A Syrian source told Reuters that vessels were delayed because of uncertainty over payments and that Russia and the interim government were in communication regarding the issue. A Russian industry source said Russian exporters were in contact with the Syrian side.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov said on Friday that Russia has made direct contact with the political committee of Syria’s Islamist rebel group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, aiming to maintain its military bases in Syria. He did not comment on the wheat trade.

Given there was no payment from the Syrian side for the delivered wheat, a Russian industry source said the cargo of about 60,000 metric tons loaded on the two vessels might be sold to another buyer.

The two vessels can carry a combined 33,000 tons of wheat. However, part of the Russian grain trade with Syria is conducted using sanctioned Syrian vessels that are not visible on tracking systems.

Eduard Zernin, head of the Russian Grain Producers and Exporters Union, told Reuters this week that Russian grain exporters did not plan to unilaterally stop supplying wheat to Syria.

Zernin estimated Syria’s imports at about 2 million metric tons of wheat per year, and said Syria was not a major consumer. A disruption in Russian wheat supplies, however, could cause hunger in the country of over 23 million people.

Dmitry Rylko from IKAR consultancy estimated wheat exports to Syria at 300,000 tons so far this season, with the country ranking 24th among Russian wheat buyers. Syrian imports vary from year to year depending on its own harvest.

Syria could produce up to 4 million tonnes of wheat in a good year, which would be enough for domestic needs and allows for some exports.

However, war and successive droughts have eroded its crop, forcing the country to rely on imports from the Black Sea region to sustain a bread subsidy program essential for its population.

— Additional reporting by Maha El Dahan in Dubai and Gleb Bryanski in Moscow

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The Ukrainian mission said in comments to Reuters that the Finikia was transporting 6,000 metric tonnes of corn, which it considered stolen, from the Black Sea port of Sevastopol.

In the note to Lebanon’s ministries of transport, finance and economy, as well as the customs directorate, the embassy said the corn had been “stolen from storage units in the Zaporizhzhia, Mykolaiv and Kherson regions.”

It said the ship was “in violation of international law” and expressed its hope that Lebanon “does not allow the entry of the aforementioned cargo ship Finikia to Lebanese ports to sell stolen Ukrainian grain.”

Lebanon’s ministers of transportation and finance did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment. Syria’s government and the Syrian General Authority for Maritime Transport, which owns the Finikia, did not immediately respond to written questions.

Lebanon’s economy minister said he had not received a formal note but that the embassy had sent similar notes in the past.

Moscow has previously denied stealing Ukraine’s grain.

According to MarineTraffic and a source at the Tripoli port, the ship had not yet docked there.

Last year, Ukraine raised the alarm when the Syrian-flagged Laodicea docked in Beirut carrying what Ukraine said was 10,000 tonnes of stolen flour and barley. Lebanon seized the ship but ultimately allowed it to leave. It sailed on to Syria.

Both the Finikia and the Laodicea are owned by the Syrian General Authority for Maritime Transport. The authority and the ships it owns have been sanctioned since 2015 by the United States for their alleged role in Syria’s war.

Ukraine has estimated that 500,000 tonnes of what it calls plundered Ukrainian grain had arrived in Syria in 2022 since the February 2022 invasion, shipped from several ports.

A deal allowing the safe Black Sea export of Ukraine’s grain expired in July.

— Reporting for Reuters by Maya Gebeily in Beirut.

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Some 260,000 tonnes of Russian fertilizer has been stuck in several European ports, most of it in Latvia. Russian fertilizer producer Uralchem-Uralkali has been working with the United Nations to donate the fertilizer to countries in need.

In November a shipment of the fertilizer — relied on by many countries to boost farm yields — was delivered to Malawi and a second shipment is due to be delivered to Kenya in March.

“Food and fertilizers are not under sanctions,” U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said. “That being said, it’s not a secret that there are a number of challenges — regulatory and others — that have to be overcome.”

During a U.N. Security Council meeting on Syria, Russia’s Deputy U.N. Ambassador Dmitry Polyanskiy said a donation of the fertilizer held at European ports could not be made to Syria because of U.S. sanctions imposed under the Caesar Act, which came into force in June 2020.

The fertilizers are considered a dual-use product, minimizing the chances of them being sent, Polyanskiy said.

“We once again call upon the U.N. Secretariat to address the problems of the negative consequences of sanctions against Syria and in particular to ensure that this shipment of our fertilizers is dispatched to the country,” he said.

U.S. Deputy U.N. Ambassador Robert Wood said the United States “is not the cause of any reported delays in Russia’s ability to deliver fertilizer to Syria, as claimed by Russia.”

“If Russia wants to donate fertilizer, it can do so. Russia should work directly with the U.N. to distribute agricultural donations inside Syria to its local partners,” Wood told the council.

Facilitating Russian fertilizer exports is a major part of a package deal brokered by the United Nations last July that saw the resumption of grain exports from certain Ukrainian Black Sea ports amid Russia’s war in Ukraine.

It was extended in November for four months and is due to again be renewed in March.

Dujarric said that senior U.N. trade official Rebeca Grynspan has been working hard on getting more Russian fertilizer out to the world market.

“There’s nothing we would like to see more than to see much needed fertilizer reach farmers in the developing countries, notably in Africa, where it’s desperately needed,” Dujarric told reporters.

— Michelle Nichols is Reuters’ United Nations bureau chief in New York.

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Jon Driedger from Leftfield Commodity Research in Winnipeg said that while natural disasters like an earthquake can take on a significant human cost, there is often very little change on commodity markets.

“In the broader pulse market, it’s kind of a blip in terms of the actual area impacted,” he said. “Unless there were ports that were badly damaged with no easy alternative outlet or inlet, typically these sorts of things don’t have a large impact.”

However, Driedger cautioned that the long-term impact of the earthquake is still unknown and while there could be an increase in demand if pulses are used in food aid packages, he believes there would be little change in prices.

Driedger added that he is unaware of any international supply chain disruptions in the affected areas, but he thinks there are local impacts.

Meanwhile, prices are staying steady for the most part, according to Driedger.

“I think peas are holding steady, and probably red lentils. Steady to a bit softer is largely what we’re seeing here,” he said. “In the case of something like peas, if soymeal prices stay high, that maybe helps provide a bit of a floor, but probably not the sort of thing that drives the market higher. (For) red lentils, Australia’s exporting into new markets, so that maybe caps the ceiling a little bit.

“We don’t think prices will fall apart, but maybe steady to drifting lower as we go into spring.”

The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations (UN) last Friday marked Feb. 10 as World Pulses Day for the seventh year in a row.

The UN first recognized the day in 2017 after the FAO marked 2016 as the International Year of Pulses. The UN believes pulses will be essential to fulfilling the organization’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

“This celebration presents a unique opportunity to raise public awareness about pulses and the fundamental role they play in the transformation to more efficient, inclusive, resilient and sustainable agrifood systems for better production, better nutrition, a better environment, and a better life, leaving no one behind,” the FAO said on the World Pulses Day website.

— Adam Peleshaty reports for MarketsFarm from Stonewall, Man.

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Russia and Ukraine account for nearly a third of global wheat supplies, while Russia also heavily exports fertilizer and Ukraine corn and sunflower oil. But Ukrainian grain shipments from its Black Sea ports have stalled since Russia invaded, with some 20 million tonnes of grain stuck.

Ambassador Vasyl Bodnar said Russia was shipping the stolen grains out of Crimea, which it annexed in 2014, and added Kyiv was working with Turkey and Interpol to find the culprits.

“Russia is shamelessly stealing Ukrainian grains and getting it out from the invaded Crimea. These grains are being shipped to foreign countries, including Turkey,” he told reporters in Ankara.

“We have made our appeal for Turkey to help us and, upon the suggestion of the Turkish side, are launching criminal cases regarding those stealing and selling the grains,” he said.

The Ukrainian Embassy in Ankara later said the vessels that were involved in the stolen grains shipments were the Nadezhda, Finikia, Sormivskiy, Vera, and Mikhail Nenashev ships. Reuters was not able to independently verify the embassy’s claims.

The Ukrainian embassy in Beirut told Reuters this week Russia had sent its ally Syria some 100,000 tonnes of stolen wheat.

The conflict has fueled a global food crisis, prompting the United Nations to pitch the plan to re-open shipping routes from Odesa and other Ukrainian ports.

— Reporting for Reuters by Tuvan Gumrukcu.

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Wheat was the story of the day: Most CBOT wheat futures contracts — including most actively traded May — fell to new contract lows, while Kansas City wheat futures contracts all fell to new lows across the board.

Grain traders said they were monitoring bearish technical signals as well as falling prices in the global cash wheat market.

“If you’re looking for reasons to slam wheat down right now, it’s not hard to find them,” said Jack Scoville, a futures market analyst at the Price Futures Group.

Case in point: the recent wheat tenders. Instead of opting for U.S. wheat, Syria’s General Establishment for Cereal Processing and Trade (Hoboob) bought 200,000 tonnes of Black Sea-origin wheat in its latest international purchasing tender, a government source said.

Meanwhile, trading house Agrocorp secured a tender to supply 50,000 tonnes of wheat to Bangladesh, and is expected to draw grain from Russia to fulfil the deal, according to officials with the state grains buyer.

Chicago Board of Trade’s March soft red winter wheat settled down 14-1/2 cents from Friday, closing at $4.89-3/4 per bushel (all figures US$). Earlier in the day, the contract’s price fell to a low of $4.88-1/2 per bushel, the lowest since Jan. 17, 2018.

Markets were closed on Monday for Presidents Day, a U.S. holiday.

K.C. March hard red winter wheat ended down 15-3/4 cents at $4.60-3/4 a bushel, while MGEX March spring wheat fell 17-1/2 cents to $5.55-1/2 a bushel.

CBOT soybean futures also plunged to a four-week low, as traders liquidated their positions and began questioning if the grains market is finally undergoing a reality check given the glut of U.S. supplies and ongoing trade uncertainty.

CBOT March soybeans settled the day down 6-3/4 cents from Friday, at $9.00-3/4 per bushel. Earlier in the day, the March contract fell to $8.94-3/4 a bushel, the lowest price since Jan. 17.

U.S. corn futures, too, dropped to multi-month lows on Tuesday.

CBOT March corn closed down five cents at $3.69-3/4 per bushel. Earlier in the day, the most actively trade corn futures contract fell to $3.69 per bushel, the lowest price since Nov. 28, 2018.

Traders said grain and oilseed futures were being pressured on Tuesday by mounting concerns about how much soybean acreage U.S. farmers will plant this spring, as South American weather improves and export competition from Brazil and Argentina shows little signs of waning.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture is expected to release its forecasts for U.S. 2019 corn, soybean and wheat plantings this week at its annual Outlook Forum.

China also said that it will continue to diversify its agricultural imports channels, and increase domestic soybean planting acreage, according to a government policy statement published on Tuesday.

The report comes as a new round of talks is underway between the U.S. and China to resolve their trade dispute, with follow-up sessions at a higher level later in the week.

The talks follow a round of negotiations that ended last week in Beijing without a deal but which officials said had generated progress on contentious issues.

— P.J. Huffstutter reports on agriculture and agribusiness for Reuters from Chicago; additional reporting by Michael Hogan in Hamburg and Naveen Thukral in Singapore.

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U.S. wheat futures climbed on technical buying and tightening global supplies, while corn futures followed the firm trend.

Chicago Board of Trade November soybeans settled up 16 cents at $8.30 a bushel (all figures US$). The contract on Tuesday fell to $8.12-1/4, the lowest price for a most active contract since December 2008.

“Soybeans were due for a bounce after four straight down days, probing into contract lows and a 10-year low. It’s about time,” said Ted Seifried, chief agriculture market strategist for broker Zaner Group in Chicago.

Soybeans also appeared to draw support from world stock markets, which broadly rose for a second straight day on bets the ongoing U.S.-China trade spat would inflict less damage than feared. China is the world’s biggest soybean importer.

CBOT wheat rose more than two per cent, with the December contract up 12 cents at $5.22-1/2 a bushel.

Wheat firmed on a mix of chart-based buying, with the December contract approaching resistance at its 20- and 200-day moving averages, along with a pick-up in global export business that has reinforced ideas of tightening global supplies.

Egypt’s main state wheat buyer on Tuesday booked 475,000 tonnes of wheat for two shipment periods, Syria bought about 200,000 tonnes of Russian wheat, and Turkey’s state grain board issued a tender for around 252,000 tonnes of wheat.

Traders were also monitoring dry weather and potential for additional cold temperatures in Australia, a key wheat exporter, following possible frost damage last weekend.

“There is just enough news in here that you are sponsoring a degree of short-covering,” one Chicago trader said. However, he cautioned, volume in CBOT wheat futures was thin. The day’s total estimated volume, at 87,431 contracts, would be the second-lowest since July 9 if confirmed.

CBOT corn futures followed wheat and soybeans higher, with benchmark December up 2-1/2 cents at $3.45-3/4 a bushel, but pressure from the expanding U.S. harvest capped rallies.

“The next couple weeks are going to be rough because guys are going to be more apt to sell corn off the combine than soybeans, which is a bit of a reversal from what we have seen in recent years,” Seifried said.

U.S. producers are more likely this autumn to store their soybeans, Seifried said, in hopes that a resolution to the U.S.-China trade dispute or a weather problem in South America might spur prices higher.

— Julie Ingwersen is a Reuters commodities correspondent in Chicago; additional reporting by Nigel Hunt in London and Naveen Thukral in Singapore.

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The Svalbard Global Seed Vault is meant as a natural deep freeze to back up the world’s gene banks in case of disasters ranging from nuclear war to global warming. It has about 900,000 seed samples.

The revamp would cover “construction of a new, concrete-built access tunnel, as well as a service building to house emergency power and refrigerating units and other electrical equipment that emits heat through the tunnel,” the agriculture ministry said in a statement.

An unexpected thaw of permafrost meant some water flowed into the entrance of the tunnel to the vault in late 2016. A decade ago, Norway said that it had cost US$9 million to build the facility.

In 2015, researchers made a first withdrawal from the vault after Syria’s civil war damaged a seed bank near the Syrian city of Aleppo. The seeds were grown and re-deposited at the Svalbard vault last year.

“This demonstrates that the seed vault is a worldwide insurance for food supply for future generations,” Agriculture Minister Jon Georg Dale said in a statement.

— Reporting for Reuters by Alister Doyle.

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