Backyard chicken farming offers another way to maintain food security and nutrition in Syria | FAO

Three years later Syrian crisispeople are finding it increasingly difficult to meet their basic needs. Many have lost their livelihoods and are struggling to find alternative sources of income in a country where job opportunities are scarce. With rising inflation and a sharp depreciation of the Syrian pound, the remaining savings of Syrians are being rapidly depleted. Many have been forced to resort to negative coping mechanisms, which often have the most severe impact on their food security and nutrition.

In this context, female-headed households are more severely affected by the crisis. Households living in rural areas of the country are among the most vulnerable groups as they often have little or no income, very limited savings and high recurrent expenses. As a result, their resources can be easily depleted, reducing their coping capacity and increasing their dependence on external support.

It is therefore crucial to find alternative solutions to maintain food and nutrition security for the most vulnerable households, especially those headed by women.

Backyard chicken farming is an excellent way to improve the supply and availability of micronutrient and protein-rich foods. In addition, it is an ideal activity for women, as raising livestock and poultry is traditionally done by the female members of the family.

With funding from the UK Department for International Development and the Central Emergency Response Fund, FAO is currently helping 3,000 vulnerable households in Rif Dimashq to restart or maintain their backyard poultry farming. In Homs, 1,600 households have been helped. Each family will receive 15 egg-laying hens and 50 kg of poultry feed – enough for two months, after which the hens can be fed with food scraps left by the family. This assistance enables families to produce eggs for family consumption and to increase their protein intake, while the surplus can be sold in local markets or bartered.

“Prices are very high, we live with two families in one small house, my mother is ill and we have no jobs. Before we received these chickens, we could not afford eggs from the market. Now there are enough eggs for all of us,” said Fatima, one of the beneficiaries. Before the crisis, Fatima had a house where she lived with her children. After the conflict, she was forced to move to her parents’ house. Without a job, she could barely meet the needs of her family and her ill mother.

Souad has similar thoughts. “We have nothing to do now. We have no jobs and food prices are high. Thanks to the egg-laying hens we received, we have enough eggs for our family. Eggs are expensive on the market and now we don’t have to buy them.” Before the crisis, Souad and her family worked as agricultural workers and raised some livestock. Now they have lost everything since the conflict broke out.

Following the successful completion of distributions in Homs governorate in late 2013, which assisted 1,600 vulnerable families, FAO began distributions in Rif Dimashq in April 2014. To date, 901 families in Qatana district in Rif Dimashq have received a total of 13,515 hens.

Over the next two months, FAO will continue to distribute poultry and poultry feed to beneficiaries in nine districts of Rif Dimashq (Qatana, Daraya, Zabdani, Rif Dimashq, Douma, Yabrud, Nabq, Kutaifa and Tal).