Business

Syrian minister urges residents to plant their own wheat amid bread shortage

Damascus, Dec 8 (EFE/EPA).- Syria’s agriculture minister Mohamed Hassan Qatana has called on the country’s citizens to plant wheat - even at home - in a bid to alleviate a severe bread shortage in the war-torn nation.“We are under a blockade and the cultivation of every piece of land will help achieve food security for each family, thus relieving the country of the burden of imports,” Qatana told Efe during an interview at his office in the ministry headquarters in Damascus.FOOTAGE OF A BREAD SHOP.SOUNDBITES OF MOHAMED HASAN QATANA.Translations: 1.- "It's probably not a crisis, but a problem, because Syria is famous for being a country of wheat."2.- "We always cultivate around 1,800,000 hectares, but during the war, the cultivated land dropped to 1,100,000 hectares, and last year we recovered to 1,200,000."3.- "The cultivated land suffered great problems due to the decrease in water resources, which caused the drop in wheat production to 2.8 million tons of annual wheat compared to what was produced before the war, an average of 3.2 million tons."4.- "We are in a state of war, and we are under a blockade, and the cultivation of every piece of land will help achieve food security for the Syrian wherever they live. Why can't every Syrian citizen have a field to grow wheat for their food self-sufficiency?"