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Syria Agricultural Potential
In the mid-1980s, the government redirected its energies
toward revitalizing the agricultural sector. Despite substantial
increases in the 1985 investment budget allocations for
agriculture, there was no quick solution to the problem of
sustaining agricultural growth. Although since the 1950s farmers
had steadily expanded use of fertilizers and new seeds and had
adopted new techniques, which improved productivity in cotton,
fruit, and vegetable cultivation, agricultural development had
stagnated. Socialist transformation of the economy and the
expanded role of the state in all aspects of economic life
combined with the political instability of the 1960s to disrupt
agriculture. Although the state drew up plans to use Syria's
water resources more efficiently by expanding irrigation systems
in the 1970s and 1980s, the government failed to devise an
agricultural policy with appropriate incentives and pricing
mechanisms to stimulate output. Although low rainfall in the
early 1980s and the prolonged drought of 1984 had an impact on
agricultural output, economists linked agriculture's poor
performance in the 1970s and early 1980s to government policy.
The government's renewed interest in agricultural development in
the mid-1980s signaled a guarded optimism for the future;
economists questioned, however, whether Syria could raise future
animal and crop production above its astoundingly high 3.8
percent annual population growth.
Data as of April 1987
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