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Syria Land Use
The bulk of the country is arid, with little vegetation. In
1984, nearly 20 percent was classified as desert
(see table 8,
Land Use, Appendix). Another 45 percent of the land was classified as
steppe and pasture, although its grazing capacity was very
limited--much like land in the American Southwest. Less than 3
percent of the land was forested, with only part of it
commercially useful. Cultivatable land amounted to 33 percent of
the total area. In 1984, 91.7 percent of the total cultivable
area of 6.17 million hectares was cultivated.
Major expansion of the cultivated area occurred in the 1940s
and 1950s. Much of the expansion was the result of investment by
wealthy urban merchants, many of whom were from the country's
religious minorities. Their innovations included large-scale use
of farm machinery, pumps, and irrigation where possible, and
differrent tenure arrangements for farm operators than were used
in other parts of the country. But the efforts of the merchants
of Aleppo and other commercial centers largely exhausted the
potential for bringing new land under cultivation. The area of
cultivation (6.9 million hectares) and land irrigated (760,000
hectares) peaked in 1963 and has been appreciably smaller since
then. In 1984, aproximately 5.7 million hectares were under
cultivation, with 618,000 irrigated.
Opinions differ as to the causes of the decline of cultivated
and irrigated areas after 1963. Some observers say that marginal
lands brought under cultivation proved uneconomical after a few
years and were abandoned. Others claim that the merchantdevelopers used exploitive techniques that eventually reduced the
productivity of the soil. Still other observers blame land-reform
measures, which coincided with the decline of the cultivated and
irrigated areas. Each view is probably somewhat valid.
In the future, expansion of the cultivated area will be slow
and costly. Although the Euphrates irrigation projects will
provide water to bring additional land under cultivation, growth
will be partly offset by the loss of arable land to urban
expansion, roads, and other facilities for a growing population.
After the disappointing results of the Euphrates irrigation
projects through the mid-1980s, the government began to develop
rain-fed agriculture to offset potential setbacks in the
Euphrates scheme. Drainage investments also will be required to
maintain cultivation on some irrigated areas that currently
suffer from waterlogging or excessive salinity.
Data as of April 1987
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