Agriculture is one of the main livelihood sources for Syrian farmers, especially for communities living in rural areas who had to face decrease in agriculture production due to increased costs of equipment and crop treatments. Through the support of the programme, agriculture services have been rehabilitated in close collaboration with the Local Administrations. The support for the reactivation of services for their farmers and breeders and the continuous technical assistance provided by the Programme technicians has allowed to resume basic agricultural/crops services and introduce even new ones. CIHEAM Bari provided the local communities with modern and efficient agricultural machinery and equipment, including tractors, fertiliser spreading machine, plough, to serve agricultural fields and enhance crop productivity in the targeted area.

Furthermore, extension services, namely Early warning plant disease systems and technical assistance, are continuously provided to farmers by the project’s local technicians. These services focus on major challenges and problems faced in the main crop productions (mainly wheat, cotton and barley). Meteorological stations were installed to process weather data (temperature, rainfall, solar radiation, humidity and wind direction) that are crucial for the prediction of diseases and insects incidences in the region and trainings are organised for local technicians on the use of meteorological data.

With the aim of making meteorological stations’ forecasts available to farmers and to increase the efficiency of the EWDS (Early Warning Disease System), an application software, adapted to the Syrian context, is developed. The APP, called “AGRISYRIA”, addresses farmers specific needs, taking into account meteorological and biological data of the crops and parasites that characterise the rural areas where farmers and technicians operate. The APP is designed to offer real-time data actually collected in the field to professional users and enables the implementation of alert systems in order to plan phytosanitary interventions. After thorough data analysis, international experts offer advice and support to local technicians and farmers on the best practices to adopt based on the occurrence of certain conditions.