Syria’s sugar beet crop is forecast to decline by 31 percent this year compared to last.

Syria’s production of lint cotton reached 218,000 tons this season, according to the head of the Cotton Marketing Organisation, Nazir Lababidi.

The increasingly deteriorating security situation across Syria, in particular in the northern part of the country, around the cities of Aleppo, Idlib and Hama, has rendered almost impossible the distribution of barley, forcing the authorities to turn to imports.

Syria’s production of olive for the 2011/2012 season is forecast at 900 thousand tons by the Ministry of Agriculture.

Syria’s wheat crop is expected to reach 3.7 million tons according to new estimates by the Ministry of Agriculture.

The Syrian Government has resumed the export of sheep and mountain goats only six months after it imposed a ban.

Syria’s production of cereals declined 10 percent in 2011, according to the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organisation, a figure that contradicts data published by the Ministry of Agriculture.

Syria’s poultry sector produced about 3.5 billion eggs and 200,000 tons of meat last year, according to a report by the Federation of Chambers of Agriculture (FCA).

The Syrian Government will disburse this year some SYP 13.5 billion to support the purchase by farmers of their agricultural inputs.

Syria’s Cotton Marketing Organisation has bought a total of 638,000 tons of seed cotton from this year’s crop, according to its Director General, Nazir Lababidi.

Syria’s General Company for Mills produced 1.6 million tons of flour in the first nine months of this year and posted a trade loss of SYP 37.8 billion because of the subsidies it provides on this product.

The Syrian President has issued a decree requesting the Agricultural Cooperative Bank to ease lending procedures to farmers in a bid to boost production.

Syria’s General Company for Mills plans to grind 2.8 million tons of wheat next year and to produce out of it some 2.2 million tons of flour for bread production; about 1.7 million will be grinded through the company’s mills and the rest through private sector mills.

Syria’s olive oil production in the 2010/2011 crop is estimated at 180,000 tons, while exports are forecast at 25,000 tons, according to the International Olive Oil Council.

Syria recently extended until February of next year a tender to purchase 44,000 tons of rice from world markets.