FAO.org

The ongoing crisis in Syria has severely affected rural livelihoods prompting FAO to restore energy access to households for agricultural activities.

FAO aims to increase the resilience of hundreds of families by implementing egg incubators with inverter/chargers, batteries and solar photovoltaic panels to operate in areas without electricity or during power cuts.

In the north, south and eastern parts of Syria, electricity from the grid runs intermittently from zero to fourteen hours a day.

Before the civil war, 78% of the rural population had access to electricity which helped farmers to store and use their agricultural produce as food. But the war triggered the internal displacement of more than 7.6 million people and a further 5 million who fled as refugees and many lost their livelihoods.

In governorates across the country, a steady power supply could support agricultural activities that would in turn improve livelihoods and ensure the food security of affected populations.   In response to this need FAO built 43 solar photovoltaic systems across the country to power egg-incubators to support families who urgently require access to energy for poultry farming.

Without a constant and stable energy supply, it is extremely difficult to maintain the temperature and moisture levels needed for eggs to hatch. Thanks to solar panels charging the batteries, the lack of power is no longer a constraint for the benefiting farmers. 

After incubation, the hatched eggs will enable more than 700 households to start poultry farming. The peak power of each system is 1kWp to charge solar batteries which produce electricity to ensure the correct temperature, humidity and ventilation levels in each egg incubator. With the right conditions in place, after 21 days, more than 160 eggs should hatch in each incubator, and the chicks and subsequent broilers will be the start of new poultry businesses. The initiative will also serve many beneficiaries indirectly through established poultry farming associations.

Hasan Hamid, from Al Tebneh village in Deir Ez-Zor Governorate, is monitoring the egg hatching process for himself and other farmers. 

“Now, a farmer can increase the number of owned chickens and improve the livelihoods and food source for the family, by guaranteeing an increased production of chicks by up to 80 percent,” said Hasan.

“This has encouraged many vulnerable families to establish a poultry business,” he added. 

Decentralized and off-grid systems also reduce the carbon footprint of agri-food systems and increase the resilience of crisis-affected populations. These farmers are no longer dependent on the grid to maintain or develop their agricultural activities to ensure basic food security.