São Paulo – The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) said this Tuesday (31st) that the amount of US$ 121 million is needed to guarantee food security for the Syrian population. The plea was made at the Third International Humanitarian Pledging Conference, held in Kuwait City. <\/p>\n
According to information from UN Radio<\/em> and FAO, this money will be used to promote and strengthen food production in Syria, especially in rural communities. According to the FAO’s regional representative for the Middle East, Abdessalam Ould Ahmed, the conflict between the government and the opposition taking place in Syria since 2011 has impacted important areas of the country for food production. <\/p>\n “The Syria crisis has totally destroyed the economy and affected neighboring countries. The conflicts are taking place especially in the rural areas”, said Ahmed. “The collapse also affected the agriculture production, which now is only 25% of what it was before the crisis”, he added. <\/p>\n Still according to Ahmed, some of the countries next to Syria that welcomed refugees are not able to answer the demand because they received an immigrant flow almost the size of their own population, which are now sharing with the local population a small territorial area. And this ended up also affecting the local population. <\/p>\n In the FAO estimations, 9.8 million people victims of the Syria conflict live under a situation of food insecurity. From the US$ 121 million requested by FAO, US$ 59 million will be used in the Syrian territory, to expand food security for the families, their income, improve the livestock of the small farmers and guarantee the supply of basic food. <\/p>\n The other US$ 62 million will be sent to countries that received Syrian refugees, such as Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey. The goal is to help these nations to prevent plagues in plants and animals and strengthen its food supply chain. <\/p>\n *Translated by Sérgio Kakitani<\/strong><\/p>\n