5 Qirsh FAO

Issued as part of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization coin program, which ran through the 1960s and 70s and enlisted dozens of nations to produce circulating coins explicitly promoting agricultural development. Syria's participation reflected the Ba'athist government's emphasis on agrarian reform — land redistribution had been a central policy since the party came to power in 1963, and the FAO issue gave that ideology an internationally legible face.