Syria self-sufficient in wheat for first time since before war: official

DAMASCUS: Syria has reached self-sufficiency in wheat production for the first time since before the country’s civil war erupted in 2011, an official told AFP on Thursday, after years of reliance on imports.
As well as the war hitting the agriculture sector hard, Syria has seen drought in recent years, with the United Nations saying 2025 saw the country’s worst climate conditions in decades, also impacting wheat-growing land.
“There won’t be any need for (wheat) imports this season,” said Ahmed Qadoun, deputy general director of the Syrian Grain Establishment, adding that Syria had last been self-sufficient in 2010.
On Wednesday, state news agency SANA reported that the grain establishment had received 2.7 million tons of wheat from across Syria during this year’s harvest, exceeding the national annual requirement of 2.55 million tons.
Before the civil war erupted in 2011, Syria was self-sufficient in wheat, producing an average of 4.1 million tons annually.
But after the conflict and drought disrupted production, Syria’s former ruler Bashar Assad used to rely on imports, particularly from ally Russia for wheat.
Syria’s new authorities took power in 2024, and the country said last year that it had received wheat shipments and donations from countries including Russia and Iraq.
During the war, the former authorities also competed with a semi-autonomous Kurdish administration to buy wheat from farmers across fertile lands in the northeast outside government control.
In January, Syria’s Kurds and Damascus agreed a deal to integrate Kurdish forces and institutions into the state.
The United Nations said in June that more than 13 million Syrians, or over half the population, were facing acute food insecurity.