OA in Syria:

INTRODUCTION:

Until now, Syria does not actually apply the system of organic agriculture, although there are some individual attempts. In spite of the fact that the Ministry of Agriculture applies Integrated Pest Management (IPM) Programs on citrus and olive to minimize pesticides use to create clean product through spreading of natural and biological enemies for citrus pests, and distribute fermon traps. This is in addition to extension, seminars and interviews with farmers to raise their awareness and consequently decrease the use of pesticides in fields.
In Syria, there has been a growing interest shown by some scientists, farmers, trade operators and the Syrian Government in organic agriculture.
The project "Institutional Development of Organic Agriculture in Syria" has been recently launched to achieve the following objectives: (i) Elaboration of a national legal framework defining organic farming in accordance with international standards and regulations; (ii) Proposal for the organization of a certification body; (iii) Identification and development of organic markets; (iv) Elaboration and initial implementation of an articulated research program; and (v) Training of technicians, researchers and leader farmers.
In Syria, there is 29 organic olive farm, one organic grape farm, and 3226 organic cotton farm licensed and inspected by foreign companies.

REGULATORY ASPECTS:

1. Nowadays, a great efforts were made for finalizing the draft of the Syrian Organic Agriculture law.This law will organize all aspects of OA in Syria, specially determination of suitable mechanism for all sides (producers, exporters & importers ,traders , inspectors, …etc ).

2. Working Group was formed as a nucleus for the Office of organic agriculture to be established immediately after the approval of organic law, through an administrative order by the Minister (No. 2857 date 10.27.2010). This group included 9 representatives from the related departments as follows: Agricultural Extension - Plant Production - Plant Protection - Animal Health - Agricultural Marketing - Agricultural Economics - agriculture Statistics and Planning - Plant Production - General Commission for Scientific Agricultural Research.

INSTITUTIONAL ASPECTS:

According to the importance of the extension component ,in the second phase of the project, and because of the successful stories of FFS as a pilot proved, effective, and the embodiment of the principle of participatory approach in the strategy of the Directorate of Agricultural Extension, the project has established 12 FFS ,with supervision from the trained staff, the selected crops were the same crops which were experimented at 1st phase . (olive - pistachio - protected tomatoes - cotton) in addition to two schools of medicinal and aromatic plants, ten schools, have started on the ground, cotton will be launch in 2011 in Raqqa and Hassake.
The following table shows the distribution of selected schools:

no	crop	governorate	Ex-unit	facilitator	assistant	Farmers no	area
1	Tomato	Latakia	Hwaiz	Amara Aboud	Shadi Dagher	19	700 m²
2	Tomato	Tartus	Al-Muntar	Mahmoud dayyoub	Emad Taishouri	10	400 m²
3	Olive	Alippo	Shikh Hadid	Ibrahim Abdullah	Ali Rasho	15	0.5 ha
4	Olive	Idleb	Salkine	Abdel wahed Jarad	Safwat Barazi	15	0.5 ha
5	Olive	Hama	Tall al tout	Ahmad Ismael	Tammam Al sameh	15	0.5 ha
6	Olive	swaidaa	Omm alzaitoun	Adel Jaramani	Majdi Hamza	15	0.5 ha
7	Pistachio	Idleb	Tamanaa	Faisal Allolou	Adnan Bakri	15	0.5 ha
8	Pistachio	Hama	Mourek	Tawfiq Al Masri	Ryadh al Dali	15	0.5 ha
9	Medical Plants	Latakia	Bkrrama	Mahmoud Shbani	Atef Kfrkttari	15	0.5 ha
10	Medical Plants	Latakia	Ktelbia	Yaser Nasser	Hanadi Zarqa	15	0.5 ha
11	Cotton	Waiting for the new season
12	Cotton	Waiting for the new season

Medical & Aromatic plants Farmers Field schools

organic pistachio Farmers Field schools

Pistachio farmers at thier meeting

National Project Director

Farms number: 3256
Total area: 28461 ha.
Products: olive (olive oil), grape, cotton
This table shows the certified organic areas

Product	Area (ha.)	Quantity (t)
Olive	570	670 & 156 oil
Grape	10	1700
Cotton	27881	32063.4

The aim of organic production of these products is to be exported abroad. The following table shows the areas that are under conversion into organic agriculture system

Product	Area (ha)	Conversion year
Olive	100	2007
Cotton	1931.3	2007

MARKETING ASPECTS:

With regard to olive and grape, the producing company shall undertake the task of marketing these products. On the other hand, the Government contracted a Dutch company to take care of the processes of certification and marketing of organic cotton.
Export: /1302/ tons of organic cotton shall be exported with a price that is higher than the local price by about 30%.
Import: Syria does not import organic products.

RESEARCH, TRAINING AND EXPANSION:

The Ministry of Agriculture represented by MAAR will implement some of small studies and researches on different aspects of organic farming (production systems, organic fertilizer, organic control…etc).
This is in addition to some training activities for technicians to disseminate knowledge and information about organic farming and production systems.
Moreover, university (Faculty of Agriculture) shall implement some of these experiments through postgraduate, M.Sc., PhD studies.
Five research programs on different aspects of organic farming shall be executed in MAAR through activities of the project "Institutional Development of Organic Agriculture in Syria"