Fighting has led to extensive crop and livestock losses and destroyed greenhouses, veterinary clinics, irrigation systems, tractors and other assets, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said in a report — the first to provide a comprehensive assessment of the war’s impact on agriculture.

Food production dropped to an all-time low last year, with many farmers forced to abandon their land.

Those remaining urgently need basic supplies such as fertilizer, seeds and medicines for livestock in order to revamp production, but funds are scarce, the FAO said.

“Ramping up investment in the recovery of the agriculture sector could dramatically reduce the need for humanitarian aid,” FAO director-general Jose Graziano da Silva said in a statement.

“It could also have a significant impact on stemming the flow of migrants.”

Rebuilding the agricultural sector would cost between $10.7 and $17.1 billion over the first three years, depending on how the conflict develops, the report said (all figures US$).

The analysis, based on surveys last September of more than 3,500 households across the country, found that Syria’s rural population had more than halved since 2011.

Nine in 10 families now spend more than half their income on food, up from 25 per cent before the war, due to soaring food prices and the decline in farming income, it said.

More than seven million people in Syria are classified as “food insecure,” meaning they are not always sure where their next meal is coming from, according to the FAO.

Since the conflict began in March 2011, almost half a million people are estimated to have been killed and more than 11 million, about half the population, are displaced either internally or as refugees.

— Reporting by Umberto Bacchi for the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, covering humanitarian news, women’s rights, trafficking, property rights, climate change and resilience.

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Researchers from the University of Arizona (UA) said they had created a genetically modified maize plant that is edible even when infected with a mould that produces aflatoxin, a carcinogenic substance.

About 16 million tons of maize, equivalent to almost the total output of South Africa, are thrown out each year worldwide due to contamination, as even small amounts can make an entire harvest unsafe for consumption.

In developed countries, commercial crops are screened for aflatoxin. But in many parts of the developing world contaminated food often ends up on the plate, as crops are not tested and small farmers depend on what they harvest to eat, the researchers said.

“People are unfortunately consuming unknown and dangerous levels of these toxins pretty much on a daily basis,” said Monica Schmidt, assistant professor at UA’s School of Plant Sciences.

The problem is heightened during droughts — whose frequency is expected to increase with climate change — as the fungus spreads more easily among stressed crops, she said.

In a study published in the journal Science Advances, Schmidt and her team said they had created a genetically engineered maize plant, which produces a “Trojan Horse” molecule that jumps onto the fungus and shuts down its aflatoxin production.

Schmidt said the method should be transferable to other crops prone to aflatoxin contamination, like rice, soy and peanuts, as it exploits a naturally occurring biological mechanism known as RNA interference.

The method also has an advantage over other practices currently used to fight aflatoxin, like vacuum-sealed storage bags, as it tackles the fungus in the field rather than after harvest, Schmidt told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by phone.

She said initial analysis suggested the modified corn should not have any side-effect for consumers, but extensive field tests still needed to be conducted.

The toxin has been linked to stunted growth in children, increased risk of liver cancer, and higher susceptibility to HIV and malaria.

In 2004, Kenya suffered severe outbreaks of aflatoxin poisoning, which affected more than 300 people and killed more than 100 following a prolonged drought, according to the International Livestock Research Institute.

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The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) urged countries in Europe and North Africa to be vigilant to prevent possible outbreaks from spiralling into epidemics that could cut food production.

In 2016 thousands of hectares of wheat crops were damaged in Sicily in one of the biggest outbreaks of stem rust to hit Europe in more than 50 years, researchers said.

“We had never seen anything like that in five or six decades,” David Hodson of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by phone.

An analysis by CIMMYT and Denmark’s Aarhus University, highlighted in the journal Nature on Thursday, found the epidemics were caused by a new strain of stem rust, a fungal infection that, if left untreated, can destroy a whole crop in a few weeks.

“It’s very aggressive,” said Biagio Randazzo, the agronomist who first detected the disease, adding that in Sicily different types of durum wheat, used to make pasta, as well as bread wheat and some qualities of oat were affected.

Stem rust spores are spread by wind, and in 2017 the fungi could affect harvests in nearby countries like Greece, Albania, Libya and Tunisia, the researchers warned.

Contamination is not certain though, as the spores might have not survived this year’s harsh winter temperatures, they said.

FAO plant pathologist Fazil Dusunceli said the disease is particularly worrying for smallholder farmers in North Africa, who account for a large share of wheat production in the region.

Early applications of fungicides are key to containing outbreaks, according to the research, but small farmers often lack money or expertise to use them effectively, he said.

“They are more vulnerable,” he said in an interview.

An additional risk was posed by the recent appearance in some areas of Europe, Africa and Asia, of another two new strains of a different wheat infection, yellow rust, although their potential impact was not yet clear, he said.

“It’s more important than ever that specialists from international institutions and wheat-producing countries work together to stop these diseases in their tracks,” Dusunceli said in a statement.

“We have to be swift and thorough in the way we approach this,” he added.

More than one billion people in the developing world rely on wheat as a source of food and income, according to the FAO.

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When a homeless man asked Dino Impagliazzo for an espresso, the Italian pensioner thought: “Why not help?”

Soon he and his wife were making sandwiches for homeless people who hung around one of Rome’s train stations.

As word spread, the lines for food grew longer. Eventually Impagliazzo switched to hot meals, cooking them first at home and later using the kitchen of a nearby church.

“The nuns had a large pot that came in handy,” he recalled.

A decade on, the 86-year-old prepares hot meals for up to 250 migrants and needy people in Rome four days a week, using a tiny fraction of the 1.3 billion tonnes of food waste that the world generates each year.

“There is no shortage of food,” said the former civil servant, a devout Catholic who credits his faith for driving him to help the poor.

“People in need are my brothers, I can’t just turn the other way,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Since 2008, Impagliazzo’s charity, RomAmor, has prepared all its meals using ingredients that are close to their expiry dates, sourced from grocery shops and wholesale suppliers who would otherwise throw them away.

Bin to plate

The charity is one of a growing number of enterprises that rescues food destined for the bin to nourish those in need — a global trend some experts say may be the answer to the mountains of food waste created daily.

“We collect so much stuff that we are even able to help other charities,” said Impagliazzo, standing in front of boxes of fruit and vegetables outside the charity’s kitchen.

Food that goes uneaten in Europe could feed a quarter of the 800 million people worldwide who go to bed hungry every night, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) says.

On Jan. 24, European Union lawmakers urged all member states to take action to halve the estimated 88 million tonnes of food wasted across the bloc annually.

Halving the amount of food that is discarded by shops and consumers by 2030 is one of the targets set by the Sustainable Development Goals, agreed by UN member states in 2015.

Impagliazzo’s first supplier was a baker, Carlo Nicoletti, who grew curious about a pensioner buying up to 20 loaves a day.

When he found out Impagliazzo was making sandwiches for the homeless, Nicoletti offered to give away unsold bread for free at the end of the day.

“I went on to involve other shop owners from the area,” said Nicoletti, one of about 300 volunteers working with RomAmor.

Meals always include a pork-free option to accommodate people of all creeds and consist of a sandwich, a plate of rice, pasta or soup, and fruit or dessert, depending on availability.

Impagliazzo said the charity receives food from dozens of stores and the number is growing after a new law opened the way for lower taxes on shops that donate leftovers.

Food for thought

Impagliazzo is keen that, besides filling empty bellies, his work can improve relations between locals and migrants.

Rome, like the rest of Italy has seen a growing influx of migrants in recent years, bringing with it high tensions.

A record 181,000 people, mostly from Africa, reached the country via boat last year alone, government figures show.

Lazio, the region where Rome is located, hosts almost 15,000 of the more than 175,000 asylum seekers living in Italian shelters, up from 8,000 in December 2015.

“It’s not only about feeding people, but also about getting to know them and trying to help,” Impagliazzo said.

The energetic pensioner oversees all of his charity’s work — he dispatches volunteers, collects food and chops vegetables.

On Jan. 23, he braved a cold, wet night to deliver food to about 100 people gathered outside the Ostiense train station.

Among the volunteers helping him was Karim Karwan, a 26-year-old Iraqi Kurd, who just days earlier had himself stood in line for a bowl of soup.

The young man said he decided to lend a hand after going with no food and little water for eight days during the sea crossing from Turkey that last year brought him to Italy.

“I understand what it means to be hungry,” said Karwan, adding that volunteering made him feel useful as he waited for his asylum application to be processed.

Impagliazzo said by working in the charity kitchen, Karwan was also learning skills he could use in the future.

He related how a homeless Italian man who had learned to cook at RomAmor had recently landed a job at a high-end hotel.

Impagliazzo said he was open to anyone willing to be of service and was currently helping a Ukrainian man who had had several run-ins with police to complete his community service.

“I’d like Rome to become a more humane city,” he said.

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