Six years of fighting in Syria has caused more than US$16 billion in losses and damage to agriculture, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said on Monday.

The UN agency has released the first comprehensive assessment of the war’s impact on agriculture which calls for the sector to be “kick-started” to help reduce the need for humanitarian aid and to stem migration.

The report comes ahead of a two-day international conference on Syria’s future which opens on Tuesday in Brussels.

Sandra Ferrari asked FAO senior technical officer Neil Marsland, who led the assessment team, to describe the state of agriculture in Syria.

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