After years of conflict, Syrian communities continue their efforts toward recovery and stability. Yet, farmers and livestock producers face multiple constraints, including high production costs, limited access to inputs, water scarcity, climate change, and depleted productive assets. Addressing these challenges requires supporting farmers to build on their existing technical knowledge and enhance their adaptive capacities to restore and sustain their livelihoods.
Recognizing these challenges, the Danish Refugee Council (DRC), in collaboration with its partners, supports farmers and livestock producers to strengthen their livelihoods, foster resilience, and adapt to evolving climatic and economic conditions. Through targeted capacity-building initiatives and practical training, DRC helps communities build on their existing knowledge and skills while strengthening the capacity of agricultural experts and service providers to deliver support.
For many farmers and livestock breeders, agricultural knowledge and practices have been passed down from parents and grandparents. While this experience provides a valuable foundation, learning new and updated approaches can help them adapt to changing conditions and improve their livelihoods. Through the Farmers Field School (FFS) implemented under the Syria Community Consortium*, DRC supports cattle producers in Rural Damascus by providing training on a range of topics, including modern farming and livestock-rearing practices, disease prevention, animal first aid, and modern techniques for feed production. As Muti’a, a DRC trainer at the FFS, explained, breeders were initially hesitant to move beyond traditional practices; however, the FFS enabled farmers to test new approaches and better understand what works for their animals and livelihoods.
* The Syria Community Consortium is funded by the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation
For women farmers, the FFS is not only an opportunity to strengthen their knowledge and skills, but also a safe space to join discussions and exchange experiences. It creates an environment where women can learn from one another, ask questions, exchange practices, and develop practical skills. At first, some women were reluctant to participate, but over time, their confidence grew, and they began to actively share their experiences with others, including family members, and to discuss practical ways to improve farming and livestock-rearing practices.
Strengthening extension services and local support
While strengthening farmers’ knowledge is important, sustainable agricultural recovery also depends on farmers having access to reliable advice and access to up-to-date information. This underscores the importance of strengthening extension services and local agricultural entities, which play an important role in ensuring farmers receive technical guidance and ongoing help. To this end, with the support of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark, DRC trained agricultural engineers in the Ministry of Agriculture’s Extension Services and farmers’ associations in Daraa and Homs, strengthening their technical capacities to better support farmers. DRC identified this need through an assessment of agricultural engineers’ skills and knowledge gaps. The assessment found that many engineers had limited access to advanced training, exposure to modern practices, and opportunities to apply their university studies professionally. To address these gaps, DRC provided training to equip 167 engineers with theoretical and practical skills in crop and livestock production, regenerative agriculture, marketing, and animal nutrition, enabling them to better assist farmers facing ongoing challenges.
We studied many of these topics at the university, but we did not have the opportunity to gain practical experience. Agricultural engineers have lost some technical skills over the years. Now, with the market opening again, there is a greater need for strong technical knowledge to help me communicate with farmers.
Maysaa Hassan, an agricultural engineer with the Directorate of Agriculture in Al-Ghassaniya, Homs governorate.
Mohammed Shbeir, Head of the Agricultural Extension, Education and Rural Development Department and a trainer under this project, said the training filled a long-standing gap. “Since 2010, few specialized training opportunities have existed due to the crisis and security issues. The project addressed this by offering targeted training for extension workers.” He explained that with stronger technical expertise and practical experience, agricultural engineers are now better equipped to advise farmers, especially as more Syrians return to farming or invest in their land.
The progress achieved through these efforts also highlights the importance of continued support for farmers and the broader agricultural sector. As communities adapt to evolving challenges and needs, strengthening knowledge, skills, and access to reliable technical guidance can help farmers make informed decisions, increase productivity, and protect their livelihoods. Over time, these efforts can contribute to more resilient farming communities, stronger local economies, and a more productive and sustainable agricultural sector in Syria.