Qatar Charity, in partnership with OCHA’s Syria Cross-border Humanitarian Fund, inaugurated a bread production line and Silos in Al-Rai, a subdistrict in northern Aleppo Governorate, northern Syria.

This is part of Qatar Charity’s ‘Support Wheat Value Chain in Northwest Syria’ project that has been being implemented for three years to contribute to enhancing food security and livelihoods in northwestern Syria.

The inaugural ceremony was attended by Mr. Bakir Shan, director of Turkey’s Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency (AFAD) in Gaziantep, in addition to the representatives of al-Rai town’s local council, agriculture directorate, and many local bodies.

The production capacity of the bread production line is 5,000 loaves per hour, while the silo’s storage capacity is 12000 tons. The silos consist of 12 cells with a capacity of 1000 tons for each.

The ‘Support Wheat Value Chain in Northwest Syria’ project also includes the installation of a mill with a production capacity of 50 tons of flour per day.

Under the project, 2500 tons of wheat were purchased and milled to be distributed to the beneficiaries in the form of free and subsidized bread.

Qatar Charity, through this project, contributes to enhancing food security in the region by operationalizing silos, bread production lines, and mills, in addition to providing farmers with livelihood opportunities by supporting them with agricultural inputs for wheat cultivation, and building the capacities of local communities to manage the facilities for sustainable development and self-reliance.

During its three years, the project has so far made several achievements in the countryside of Aleppo in northern Syria since 2019. They include supporting the cultivation of three stations for wheat seeds multiplication, in cooperation with the General Organization for Seed Multiplication, the rehabilitation of three wheat silo facilities, containing 36 storage cells with a capacity of up to 1,000 tons per cell, in Marea, Sharran, and AlRai, and the installation of two mills with a production capacity of 50 tons of flour per day in Marea and Al-Rai.

The project also supported 1004 wheat farmers with agricultural inputs such as seeds, fertilizers, pesticides, and the cost of supplemental irrigating and harvesting. A total of 1,004 hectares were cultivated and 4,000 tons of wheat were produced. Besides, 6,549 tons of wheat for milling were purchased from farmers to promote the marketing and cultivation of wheat by farmers in the region, in addition to distributing nearly 7,280,000 bundles of bread to the people in NWS Syria.

Source: Qatar Charity