Agriculture in Lebanon is stagnating because of official neglect and difficulties in marketing

The President of the Lebanese Agriculture Research Institute (LARI), Ryad Saadeh, spoke with l’Orient le Jour about the agricultural sector which is suffering from stagnation as its share in the GNP has remained the same since 1970, thus not exceeding 4 – 5 %.  Saadeh added that this stagnation is due to several factors notably: losses as a result of wars, historical government neglect of this sector for the past 40 years, various climatic disasters, notably the drought of 2013 and which impacted negatively on agricultural yields and caused, for instance, a 15 – 30% drop in the potato and wheat harvests.  Saadeh considers that 2014 was relatively good in terms of the quantity and quality of production however, this, he believes is insufficient given the poor marketing and the fact that there are mafias controlling the sector and the pricing process.  Saadeh added that there are currently 200,000 tons of potato and 63,000 tons of onions in refrigeration and which constitute 45% of total production.  This, he thinks, has had a negative implication on the level of prices which now varies between LBP 300 to 500 for the kilogram of potato and LBP 200 to 350 for onion.  This is mainly due, according to Saadeh, to the Syrian crisis which has severely affected exports to Syria as well as the closure of the Iraqi market.

With regards to the current national plan to support agriculture, Saadeh expressed his optimism despite the failures of earlier plans.  To be noted that the Cabinet has decided to allocate USD 300 million to develop the agriculture sector and raise its total outputs from USD 2.3 to 3 billion.  It is to be recalled that the current plan is part of an EU funded programme which was launched back in 2011.  Saadeh concluded by saying that it is important that the current plan considers agriculture as a comprehensive cycle beginning with production and ending with marketing.

(Source: L’Orient le Jour 8 January 2015)