Out and about in Syria

Traditional homes for the area

Flood irrigated faba beans

I had the pleasure of meeting farmers in the area and talking about their production systems. Irrigation bays are done very differently there with a criss cross pattern. It wouldn't suit a 30 foot front on my grain harvester but things are on a smaller scale and often what looks like strip farmingis in fact individual farms in long lines. Most fields are not fenced so it's hard to know where one starts and one ends. What about livestock I hear you ask? There is a herdsman with every flock and they watch over them all day. So well trained and used to moving about to graze along channels and roads, I witnessed a large herd of sheep crossing over a busy freeway overpass in orderly fashion. Wish I had taken a photo. The soil in the area is a wonderful red earth and is the birth place to some of our first wheat and chickpea crops. Faba beans, cucumbers, zucchinis, barley and chickpeas were all in and looked good. There were a few ominous signs of pending problems around Al Assad lake and talking to some locals they told me their ground water was rising. Around the lake salinity was starting to creep up into the little towns that sit on its fringe. I was taken out to see some waste water used in the area and though they should have run into salinity problems before this, they haven't. Dr Qadir suspected it was due to the organic matter that comes with the waste water. It's not the prettiest stuff to look at but we will have to find ways of using waste water in the future as our fresh water supplies dwindle. Most irrigators here pay US$60 for the waste water a year and US$70 for fresh. Water isn't metered so you can take as much as you want.  The problem occurs if you are at the end of a channel and everyone upstream of you gets what they want before you get a go. This has caused some tension amongst irrigators as you could imagine.

Local farmers setting up a new drip irrigation system for cucumbers

A visit to ICARDA

direct drilled lentils

 I was in Aleppo to visit ICARDA (International Centre for Agriculture Research in Dry Areas) and pay a visit to Dr Manzoor Qadir who has some expertise in irrigation and salinity. He offered to show me around the area to see some saline water being used. In this case, some recycled water from the local treatment plant as well as some ground water use. Although Manzoor and I spoke at some length about saline irrigation, he got snowed under with commitments and he was unable to be my guide for our farm visits.
My first day was a look around ICARDA's 1000 ha property. As a model farm, it is quite something with trials of many descriptions going on. ICARDA's focus is getting more farmers practising conservation farming with the use of zero or minimal till. ICARDA encouraged local manufacturers to modify and eventually build a direct drill that would suit the area.

Syrian built minimum till seeder developed with the help of ICARDA and local engineers

Welcome to Syria

Amad and I in Aleppo's souk

I arrived in Aleppo, Syria, late at night. The flight was not without drama as many of the passengers were in a big debate with the flight crew to change the flight schedule to land in Damascus first rather than Aleppo. We sat on the tarmac for what seemed for ever while the passengers who lived in Damascus debated the merit of dropping them off first rather than flying direct to Aleppo. It got a little heated at one stage and the stewardess showed great patience to get things under control. Though I didn't know it at the time, I was in for an amazing time in Syria.

A walk down the street proved to be one of many experiences of generosity that I found disarming and surprising. Through my travels, I've become used to being approached to buy things on the street but my first day had a twist to it. I met Amad, a Kurdish man who ended up teaching me German in Syria..... don't think I could have come up with that one if I tried. For Amad, English was his fourth language and he wanted the practice. After giving him 200 Syrian lbs for a shirt that was 12 US dollars (In Syria the local currency and the US dollar are often quoted, just remember to ask which one), he didn't blink an eyelid and bought it without question. I realised my mistake but he refused my offers and simply said welcome to Syria. It was a great day walking through the ancient and endless souk. I shared a taxi with another Syrian who I had figured out was going my way. He refused any attempt to pay the fare and, once again, that common catchcry of “welcome to Syria” came my way.

Dead Sea tomatoes and white knuckle rides.

The day I flew out of Jordan and into Syria started with a white knuckled ride with Yahya, my driver. I didn't think about it too much at the time but a car sporting a wind foil taped to the back should have rung some bells on what was in store. The little car sure had some go. At 160km an hour on a road no wider than the car with camels flying past I had to ask if he could see his way clear to get me to the airport alive today. He replied “ok” and brought the car back to 140km....for a while. We travelled along the Jordan Israeli border headed for a swim in the Dead Sea and to check out some tomatoes growing around that area. Some tomatoes is an understatement, they were everywhere! The climite along the sea is quite mild and I even saw bananas growing right beside them on the flat. Yahya was pretty good to me as he played translator when we pulled up and walked in to see a few fields. Insect control for leaf miner moth was as simple as it was effective. Basins full of water with a little light suspended over it were strategically placed throughout the farm. The moths are drawn to the light, fall in and that's that for them! Simple but effective. The number of trucks stuffed with boxes of tomatoes on the road was amazing, all heading for export. They didn't seem to slow our progress though.

Insect control Jordan style

 

Not every day you see Tomatoes growing beside Bananas

A swim in the Dead Sea is quiet something. You can lay flat on your back and bob around like a cork. I even got covered is the black mud the area is famous for. It was a fun day and we made it to the airport with hours to spare.

A visit to Lawrence's house.

Wadi Rum is the landscape that Lawrence of Arabia made famous. It is on a grand scale full of weathered rocks gouged out by centuries of sand blasting to form some truly beautiful patterns and textures. You just know you're not going to be able to capture it with a camera. It's such a massive area that you have to get a car or person in most shots just to get some sense of the scale of the place. A lunch of local tomatoes and some bread covered in thyme and sesame seeds made for a top day. Just like Petra the photos will say it all.

Wadi Rum is vast, the Landcruiser gives some sort of scale.

This is known as Lawrence's house, it's oppisite the Landcruiser.

Can you find the car in this one ?

End of a great day!

The harsh and beautiful land

Farming in Jordan can be a tough game

We headed east toward the Iraq border; the landscape became stony and unforgiving.  I'm never going to complain it's dry again. How people make a living from such a tough environment with as little as 50mm of rain a year is beyond me. I can see why livestock play a big roll out there, growing crops is out of the question without irrigation and even then it's saline ground water.

I was having trouble getting hold of my other contacts and so I cut my losses and headed south for Petra. I've always wanted to see it and the experience didn't let me down. I planned to go down to

Wadi Rum as well so I only had the day there. So, up early, I dropped into Karak and Shobak en route, both sites with Crusader castles. Sitting high upon a steep mountain their sheer faces would have presented a daunting task to any would be attacker. I'm amazed they still stand after more than eight hundred years. Petra was busy with people everywhere wanting to see the mighty buildings carved out of stone. It was a thrill to walk through the narrow chasm that opens out to reveal the Treasury building, one of the most famous buildings in the Petra Valley. I could rattle on and on about how great it was but I think I'll let the pictures speak for themselves. One tip if you go, stay late, bring a torch and walk out in the dark. I had the place virtually to myself after 5pm.