Since the spring, the Damascus-run Idlib governorate has embarked on an intensive campaign to invest in all vacant lands planted with pistachio trees whose owners have fled to opposition-controlled areas. To achieve this, the governorate continues to survey and identify these vacant lands, regardless of their size.

In 2022, the Idlib governorate established committees to determine the current ownership of vacant agricultural lands. These committees identified lands owned by absentee displaced persons and those forcibly displaced to opposition areas. The governorate periodically organises public auctions to invest in these lands based on directives issued by the Ministry of Agriculture and Agrarian Reform, with the approval of the Prime Minister’s Office.

The Idlib governorate has begun preparing to invest the lands of absentee forcibly displaced persons for the 2024-2025 season. On April 22, it issued Announcement No. 276, calling on owners of pistachio farms to submit documents proving their ownership, in order to exempt their lands from the public auctions. Farmers who can prove ownership may invest in their lands personally, while those who fail to do so will see their lands put up for auction for others to invest in.

The governorate has set the starting price for investing in one hectare of pistachio-planted land at SYP 20,300,000 for the current season’s auctions, which is the price at which auction sessions will commence. The terms and procedures for this season’s auctions remain unchanged from previous seasons. They are based on Ministry of Agriculture Directive No. 289 issued on May 16, 2024, which is itself based on the provisions of Law No. 51 of 2004 concerning the contract system for public entities. Directive No. 289 specifies that the initial deposit required to participate in the auction is SYP 150,000; in the event of winning the auction, a final deposit of 10 percent of the total investment amount must be paid, along with SYP 50,000 for the technical dossier. In all cases, the bidder must present prior security clearance to enter the auction and obtain a financial clearance certificate from the Idlib governorate’s Finance Directorate.

There are around 10,000 hectares of pistachio farmland in regime-controlled areas of Idlib, containing more than 1.6 million trees, according to figures published by the state-run newspaper Tishreen in July 2023.

The main committee for agricultural investment in the regime-run part of Idlib, which includes the governor, the chief of police, the secretary of the ruling Baath Party branch, the head of the Directorate of Agriculture, and the heads of agricultural associations, had decided that July 22, 2024 would be the start date for that year’s pistachio harvest. Beginning on July 24, 2024, the governorate’s General Secretariat began issuing pistachio harvest permits to investors and landowners, either in person or through a special power of attorney duly certified by a notary and accompanied by a civil registration extract for the authorised agent. This harvest permit serves as an authorisation for pistachio picking, allowing the landowner or investor to access their land without being stopped at regime forces’ checkpoints or by patrols in the fields.

The governorate’s General Secretariat announced on its official Facebook page that July 25, would be the final deadline for settling financial obligations, warning that failure to do so would result in the seizure of movable and immovable assets of investors, a travel ban, and the imposition of price differences if the same lands were re-auctioned.

Then, on July 30, the General Secretariat posted another notice on Facebook, requiring investors in pistachio lands for the 2024 season to settle their financial obligations within 48 hours of the announcement, under the threat of unspecified “penalties.” The financial obligations that must be settled include the initial deposit of SYP 150,000, and a final deposit of 10 percent of the total contract value for the land investment and SYP 50,000 for the technical dossier.

The General Secretariat of Idlib later put up what it described as “hidden lands” for investment during the public auction held on August 5. These were lands that had not been included in previous auctions for various reasons, such as being deliberately overlooked by committees due to bribes, being accidentally omitted because the plots were too small, or being commonly owned within other larger plots. Identifying these lands is difficult, which has led to a new group of investors actively seeking them out, hoping to gain an advantage by investing in them at lower prices compared to neighbouring lands. This was highlighted in the Ministry of Agriculture’s Directive No. 433, issued on August 4, 2024.

On August 13, the General Secretariat held a new round of public auctions for pistachio farms that either had no bidders in previous auctions or where the winners failed to pay the financial deposits required to invest in them. According to lists published on the General Secretariat’s Facebook page on August 12, the total area of these lands amounted to 168 hectares.

On August 23, the General Secretariat rejected 50 applications submitted by farmers seeking to prove ownership of their lands or to establish their kinship with absent owners of vacant pistachio-planted lands. If these applications had been approved, the farmers would have been able to personally invest in their lands or participate in auctions reserved for relatives. As a result of the rejection, an additional 153 hectares of pistachio-planted land were reintroduced into the public auctions for special investment by relatives, based on mutual agreements among them.

As the pistachio harvest began, the price per kilo of uncleaned and unprocessed pistachios, known as “Armosh,” ranged between SYP 32,000 and 37,000, while the sorted and boxed pistachios were priced between SYP 85,000 and 100,000. These prices were based on the pistachio market rates in the city of Mork, north of Hama, which is the central market for pistachios in regime-controlled areas of Hama and Idlib.